THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


SEEING 
AND    HEARING 


BY 

GEORGE  W.  E.  RUSSELL 

AUTHOR   OF    "COLLECTIONS    AND   RECOLLECTIONS,"    ETC. 


LONDON 
E.  GRANT  RICHARDS 

1907 


TO 

WALTER    SYDNEY    SICHEL 

1868-1907 


' '  Ay,  there  are  some  good  things   in   life,  that  fall  not 
away  -with  the  rest, 
And  of  all  best  things  upon  earth,  I  hold  that  a  faith- 
ful friend  is  the  best. " 

— Owen  Meredith. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 
I. 

The  Coronation    . 

PAGE 
I 

II. 

Secret  Societies    .... 

10 

III. 

The  Irish  Peerage 

17 

IV. 

Omitted  Silhouettes     . 

25 

V. 

Doctors  and  Doctoring 

31 

VI. 

Mourning 

39 

VII. 

Wills 

46 

VIII. 

Pensions 

54 

IX. 

The  Season  as  it  was  . 

62 

X. 

The  Season  as  it  is 

69 

XI. 

The  Sins  of  Society 

76 

XII. 

Oxford    ...... 

83 

XIII. 

Schools  for  Shepherds 

90 

XIV. 

Pilgrimages 

97 

XV. 

The  Public  Schools 

io5 

XVI. 

Schools  and  Boarding-Houses 

113 

XVII. 

Squares  

121 

XVIII. 

Sunday  in  London 

128 

XIX. 

A  Suburban  Sunday 

135 

XX. 

Wine  and  Water  .... 

143 

XXI. 

Dinner    ...... 

•     151 

XXII. 

Dinners 

158 

XXIII. 

Luncheon        

166 

XXIV. 

Tea 

i74 

XXV. 

Supper     

182 

viii 

CONTENTS 

CHAP. 

•      XXVI 

Inns  and  Hotels 

XXVII 

Travel 

XXVIII. 

Accomplishments 

XXIX. 

Cider  . 

XXX 

The  Garter 

XXXI. 

Sheriffs 

XXXII. 

Publishers  . 

XXXIII. 

Handwriting 

XXXIV. 

Autographs 

XXXV. 

More  Autographs 

XXXVI. 

Christmas   . 

XXXVII. 

New  Year's  Day 

XXXVIII. 

Pets     .... 

XXXIX. 

Purple  and  Fine  Linen 

XL. 

Prelacy  and  Palaces 

XLI. 

Horrors 

XLII. 

Social  Changes  . 

XLIII. 

Social  Graces 

XLIV. 

Publicity  v.  Reticence 

XLV. 

Town  v.  Country 

XLVI. 

Home   .... 

XLVII. 

Hospitality. 

XLVI  II. 

Ostentation 

XLIX. 

Principle  and  Prejudice 

L. 

Culture 

LI. 

Religion 

LII. 

Superstition 

LIII. 

The  Remnant 

■ 

PAGE 
I90 

198 

207 

214 

221 

229 

237 

245 
252 

259 
266 

274 
283 
289 

297 

3°4 
312 

3i9 
326 

333 
34i 
348 

354 
360 

367 
374 
381 
388 


THE    CORONATION 

And  so  the  great  Act  draws  near — the  "high 
midsummer  pomp "  of  Patriotism  and  Regality 
and  Religion — the  "  one  far-off  divine  event "  to 
which  the  whole  social  creation  has  moved  since 
the  day  was  appointed  and  the  preparations 
began.  A  thousand  pens  will  picture  the  Coro- 
nation as  it  actually  occurs.  Writing  in  advance, 
I  can  only  contemplate  it  as  a  magnificent  ideal, 
and  describe  it  as  it  strikes  not  the  eye  and  ear 
but  the  heart,  the  imagination,  and  the  historic 
sense. 

First  and  foremost  and  above  all  else,  the  Coro- 
nation is  a  religious  act.  It  is  imbedded  in  the 
very  heart  of  the  great  Christian  service  of  the 
Holy  Eucharist.  Litany  and  Introit  and  Gospel 
and  Creed  lead  up  to  it,  and  it  in  turn  leads  on 
to  Te  Deum  and  Offertory  and  Consecration  and 
Communion.  But  though  (or  perhaps  because) 
it  is  thus  supremely  and  conspicuously  religious, 
the  Coronation  is  national  and  secular  and  his- 
torical as  well.  Other  nations  do  not  crown  their 
Sovereigns.     Some  have  no  crowns  to  give,  and 


2  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

others  are  in  doubt  about  the  rightful  recipients  ; 
in  some,  revolutions  have  shattered  the  imme- 
morial landmarks,  or  the  sharp  sword  of  civil  war 
has  severed  the  sacred  thread  of  succession,  or  the 
State  itself  is  a  mushroom  growth  of  yesterday, 
with  no  roots  and  fibres  striking  deep  down  to 
the  bedrock  of  the  national  life. 

But  here  in  England  we  crown  our  kings  as 
we  have  crowned  them  for  a  thousand  years,  and 
our  act  of  crowning  is  the  august  symbol  of  a 
nation's  story  and  a  people's  will.  For  before  ever 
the  ministers  of  God  approach  the  altar,  before 
the  sacred  emblems  of  sovereignty  are  hallowed, 
before  the  Christian's  Mysteries  begin,  before  the 
Eternal  Spirit  is  invoked  and  the  consecrating 
unction  bestowed,  the  English  people  plays  its 
part,  and,  through  the  mouth  of  its  chief  citizen 
asserts  its  fundamental  place  in  the  system  of  the 
Kingly  Commonwealth. 

Sirs,  I  here  present  unto  you  King  Edward, 
the  undoubted  King  of  this  realm  ;  wherefore  all 
you  who  are  come  this  day  to  do  your  homage, 
are  you  willing  to  do  the  same  ? "  And,  as  the 
King  stands  up  and  turns  and  shows  himself  four 
times  to  the  assembled  freemen,  they  "  signify  their 
willingness  and  joy  by  loud  and  repeated  acclama- 
tions, all  with  one  voice  crying  out,  '  God  Save 
King  Edward.'  " 

And  here  I  borrow  from  one  x  who  touches  as  no 

i  H.  S.  Holland,  D.D. 


THE    CORONATION  3 

other  living  man  can  touch  these  dramatic  solem- 
nities of  our  national  life  (for  I  know  he  will 
consent  to  the  borrowing),  and  I  say  that  this  is 
as  noble  as  it  is  intelligible.  "  It  embodies  the 
splendid  liberty  with  which  a  free  people  asserts  its 
claim  to  have  nothing  imposed  upon  it  in  the  dark, 
no  tyrannous  rule  set  over  it  which  it  has  not 
measured  and  considered  and  acknowledged  in  the 
open  light  of  Heaven."  And  then  the  whole  great 
company  falls  to  prayer,  and  the  Archbishop,  who 
has  hitherto  played  his  part  as  the  first  citizen  of 
England  and  the  greatest  subject  of  the  Crown, 
takes  up  a  still  higher  function,  and  goes  up,  vested 
to  the  altar  and  begins  the  Service  of  the  Eucharist, 
and,  as  a  priest,  invokes  the  supreme  sanction  of 
the  Eternal.  And  then  the  majestic  course  of  the 
rite  is  broken  off  in  the  very  centre,  and,  with 
every  act  and  feature  and  ceremony  which  can 
most  forcibly  express  the  solemnity  of  the  trans- 
action, the  Archbishop  demands  of  the  King,  in 
the  face  of  God  and  the  Church  and  the  people, 
whether  he  will  promise  to  rule  England  in  due 
obedience  to  law  and  with  sacred  regard  to  Justice, 
Mercy,  and  Religion.  And  the  King  gives  his 
promise,  and,  kneeling  at  the  altar,  confirms  it 
with  an  oath  upon  the  Holy  Gospel. 

"  This  free  intercourse  that  passes  between  Ruler 
and  Ruled  is  no  child's  play,  no  mere  pretty  cere- 
monial ;  it  is  the  act  of  men  in  solemn  earnest 
pledging   their  troth  the  one  to  the  other.     The 


4  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

act  is  broad  and  deep  and  strong  as  the  national 
life.  It  embodies  the  experience  of  centuries.  It 
has  in  it  the  stern  breath  of  conflict  and  the 
anxious  determinations  of  secured  peace.  The 
Great  Charter  is  behind  it,  and  the  memories  of 
Runnymede  and  Whitehall.  It  seals  a  concen- 
trated purpose.  King  and  people  look  each  other 
in  the  face,  and  speak  their  minds  out  and  give 
their  word."  And  then,  and  not  till  then,  the 
Archbishop  will  go  forward  with  his  hallowing 
office  and  perform  the  symbolic  acts,  and  pro- 
nounce the  benediction  of  the  Highest  upon  the 
covenant  between  King  and  Commonwealth.  He 
anoints  with  the  sacred  unction  and  girds  with  the 
kingly  sword.  He  delivers  the  sceptre  of  empire 
and  the  emblematic  orb  which,  "  set  under  the 
Cross,"  reminds  the  King  "  that  the  whole  world 
is  subject  to  the  power  and  empire  of  Christ  our 
Redeemer."  And  then  the  crown,  of  pure  gold 
enriched  with  gems  each  one  of  which  is  a  history, 
is  set  upon  the  Sovereign's  head,  and  the  Arch- 
bishop blesses  and  the  onlookers  acclaim. 

"  Blow,  trumpets;  all  your  exultations  blow!" 

as  King  Edward  VII.  takes  his  seat  on  the  throne 
of  the  Confessor  and  the  Conqueror,  of  the  Plan- 
tagenets  and  the  Tudors,  and  receives  by  the  mouth 
of  all  that  is  greatest  in  Church  and  State  the  proud 
homage  of  a  self-governing  people. 

And  then,  once  again,  the  splendid  trappings  of 


THE    CORONATION  5 

sovereignty  are  laid  aside,  and  the  King,  un- 
crowned, kneels  down  like  the  lowliest  son  of 
Adam  before  the  Mercy-seat  of  the  Christian 
covenant,  and  the  great  action  of  the  Eucharist 
is  resumed,  and  the  memories  of  the  Upper 
Chamber  at  Jerusalem  are  renewed  at  the  altar  of 
Westminster.  The  Word  is  spoken  and  the  Deed 
is  done.  A  great  cloud  of  prayer  and  aspiration 
and  intercession  floats  up  from  the  vast  concourse 
of  assembled  worshippers  ;  and,  in  the  midst  of 
them,  the  crowned  and  anointed  King,  kneeling 
by  her  who  must  aid  him  to  bear  his  burden, 
seeks  through  the  Divinely-appointed  Medium 
supernatural  strength  for  a  more  than  human 
task.  From  a  full  heart  and  with  the  solemnest 
intent  a  united  nation  says,  "  God  save  King 
Edward." 


The  scene  is  changed  from  Westminster  Abbey 
to  a  dining-room  in  Belgravia,  and  the  date  from 
Saturday,  9th  August,  to  Sunday,  3rd.  Thirty 
guests,  male  and  female,  are  gathered  round  a 
too-bountiful  board  ;  and,  amidst  the  rich  fumes  of 
mayonnaise  and  quails  and  whitebait  and  cham- 
pagne-cup, there  rise  the  mingled  voices  of  the 
great  "  Coronation  Chorus." 

Enthusiastic  Young  Lady.  "  I  can  think  of  no- 
thing but  the  Coronation.  Where  are  you  going 
to  see  it  from  ?" 


6  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Facetious  Young  Man.  "Oh!  from  Hurlingham. 
That's  quite  near  enough.  The  whole  thing  is 
such  a  frightful  bore.  You  know  what  they  say 
London  is  just  now.     All  Board  and  no  Lodging." 

New  Peeress.  "  I  really  envy  the  duchesses. 
They  have  such  good  places  in  the  front  row.  I 
shall  be  poked  away  under  the  gallery  quite  at  the 
back.  I  don't  believe  I  shall  see  a  thing.  But, 
after  all,  one  will  be  able  to  say  one  has  been 
there." 

Facetious  Young  Man.  "  Oh  !  you  could  say  that 
anyhow.  It's  not  good  enough  to  get  up  at  four 
in  the  morning  for  the  sake  of  saying  that. 
Charley  FitzBattleaxe  thinks  just  the  same  as  I 
do  about  it,  but  of  course,  as  he's  a  peer,  he's 
bound  to  go.  He's  a  bad  hand  at  getting  up 
early,  so  he's  going  to  sit  up  playing  bridge  all 
night,  and  then  have  his  bath  and  go  straight  to 
the  show." 

Stout  Peeress.  u  Our  creation  is  rather  old,  so 
I  have  got  a  very  good  place,  but  the  chairs  are 
too  dreadful.  Such  stiff  backs,  and  only  nine 
inches  to  sit  on,  and  horrid  wicker  seats  which 
will  make  marks  on  our  velvet." 

Thrifty  Peeress.  "  Well,  I  really  don't  know 
where  I  shall  have  my  luncheon.  It  seems  mon- 
strous to  have  to  pay  two  guineas  at  the  House  of 
Lords  for  a  sandwich  and  a  glass  of  claret.  The 
Watermans  in  Dean's  Yard  have  most  kindly 
asked    me   to   go  to   luncheon  with  them,    and  it 


THE    CORONATION  7 

would  be  an  immense  saving.  But  they  are  strict 
teetotallers,  and  I  feel  that,  after  all  those  hours  in 
the  Abbey,  I  shall  want  something  more  support- 
ing than  lemonade.  So  I  am  rather  divided.  I 
dread  the  idea  of  a  teetotal  luncheon,  but  two 
guineas  for  a  glass  of  claret  and  a  sandwich  is 
rather  much." 

Nervous  Peeress.  u  I  am  so  terrified  of  being 
faint  in  the  Abbey.  I  am  going  to  take  chocolate 
and  meat  lozenges  in  my  coronet,  and  some  brandy 
and  water  in  my  smelling-bottle." 

Chorus  (confusedly).  "  Oh  no,  port  wine  is  the 
thing.  No — rum  and  milk.  My  doctor  says 
whisky.  Whisky  ?  Oh  no  ;  sal  volatile  is  much 
the  best,  and  Plasmon  biscuits.  Not  sandwiches 
— I  hate  sandwiches.  Cold  chicken.  But  can 
we  eat  in  church  ?  Isn't  it  rather  odd  ?  Oh,  the 
Abbey  isn't  exactly  a  church,  you  know.  Isn't 
it  ?  I  should  have  thought  it  was.  Well — no — 
our  Vicar  tells  me  that  it  was  never  consecrated. 
How  very  curious  !  At  least  it  was  only  conse- 
crated by  the  Angels,  not  by  the  Bishop.  Well, 
of  course  that  makes  a  difference.  Still,  I  don't 
like  the  idea  of  eating  and  drinking  in  it.  So  I 
shall  have  some  pate  de  foie  gras  and  champagne 
in  the  carriage,  and  eat  till  the  very  moment  I  get 
to  the  Abbey,  and  begin  again  the  very  moment  I 
get  out." 

Lively  Young  Lady.  "  I'm  not  afraid  of  being 
faint — only  of  being  bored  in  that  long  wait.       I 


8  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

shall  take  something  to  read  while  mamma  is  stuff- 
ing herself  with  her  sandwiches." 

Facetious  Young  Man.  "  What  a  good  idea  ! 
Shall  you  take  Modern  Society  or  the  Pink  'Un?n 

Grave  Young  Lady  (intervening).  "Neither,  I 
hope.  People  seem  to  forget  that  after  all  it  is  a 
religious  service.  If  one  must  read,  I  think  'John 
Inglesant '  or  one  of  Miss  Yonge's  books  would 
be  more  suitable  than  a  newspaper." 

Lively  Young  Lady.  "  Well,  really,  it  is  so  diffi- 
cult to  think  of  it  as  a  religious  service.  It 
seems  to  me  more  like  a  play.  I  saw  one  of  the 
rehearsals,  and  certainly  it  was  as  funny  as  a 
pantomime.  But  still,  of  course,  one  wouldn't 
wish  to  do  anything  that  was  unsuitable  ;  so  I 
think  I  shall  take  a  'Guide-book  to  the  Abbey' 
and  learn  all  the  history  while  we  are  waiting. 
One  hears  so  much  about  it  just  now,  and  it 
seems  stupid  not  to  know.  I  never  can  remember 
whether  St.  Edward  was  Edward  the  Confessor 
or  Edward  the  Sixth.      Do  you  know  ?  " 

Facetious  Young  Man.  "  Oh,  ask  me  an  easier 
one.  Those  old  jossers  were  all  pretty  much  of 
a  muchness.  I  tell  you  I'm  not  taking  any.  The 
whole  thing  is  utterly  out  of  date.  Why  couldn't 
he  write  his  name  in  a  book,  or  send  a  crier  round 
with  a  bell  to  say  he's  come  to  the  throne  ?  " 

The  Host.  "  My  dear  Freddy  Du  Cane,  I  don't 
agree  with  you  the  least.  I  am  bound  to  say 
quite  honestly  that  all  my  life  I  have  hoped  that 


THE    CORONATION  9 

I  might  live  to  see  a  Coronation,  and  I  am  honestly 
thankful  that  I  have  got  a  place.  It  is  all  the  things 
that  interest  me  most  rolled  into  one — Pageant 
and  History  and  Patriotism  and  a  great  Religious 
Ceremony.  I  am  a  Liberal  ;  therefore  I  like  the 
Recognition  and  the  Oath.  I  am  a  Ritualist  ; 
therefore  I  like  the  vestments  and  the  Unction  and 
the  oblation  of  the  Golden  Pall.  Above  all  I  am 
an  Englishman,  and  I  like  to  see  my  Sovereign 
take  up  the  duties  of  sovereignty  at  the  altar  of 
1  that  Royal  and  National  sanctuary  which  has  for 
so  many  centuries  enshrined  the  varied  memories 
of  his  august  ancestors  and  the  manifold  glories 
of  his  free  and  famous  kingdom.'  Those  words 
are  Dean  Stanley's.  Do  you  know  his  account  of 
the  Coronation  in  his  '  Memorials  of  Westminster 
Abbey '  ?  If  you  will  let  me,  I  will  show  it  to 
you  after  luncheon.  People  ought  at  least  to  know 
what  the  service  is  before  they  presume  to  make 
stupid  jokes  about  it." 

Curtain. 


II 

SECRET    SOCIETIES 

When  Lord  Scamperdale  was  angry  with  Mr. 
Sponge  for  riding  over  his  hounds  he  called  him 
"  a  perpendicular  Puseyite  pig-jobber  "  ;  and  the 
alliteration  was  felt  to  emphasize  the  rebuke. 
If  any  Home  Ruler  is  irritated  by  Sir  Robert 
Anderson  he  may  relieve  his  feelings  by  calling 
him  a  "  preaching  political  policeman,"  and  each 
word  in  the  title  will  be  true  to  life.  Sir  Robert 
combines  in  his  single  person  the  characters  of 
barrister,  detective,  and  theologian.  He  began  life 
at  the  Irish  Bar,  was  for  many  years  head  of  the 
Criminal  Investigation  Department  in  London,  then 
became  Assistant  Commissioner  of  Police,  and  all 
the  while  gave  what  leisure  he  could  spare  from 
tracking  dynamiters  and  intercepting  burglars  to 
the  composition  of  such  works  as  "The  Gospel 
and  its  Ministry,"  "A  Handbook  of  Evangelical 
Truth,"  and  «  Daniel  in  the  Critic's  Den." 

A  career  so  diversified    was    sure    to   produce 
some    interesting   reminiscences,    and    the    book l 

1  "Sidelights   on    the    Home    Rule   Movement."     By   Sir    Robert 
Anderson,  K.C.B.,  LL.D. 


SECRET    SOCIETIES  n 

which  Sir  Robert  has  just  published  is  as  full  of 
mystery  and  adventure,  violence  and  strategy,  plot 
and  counterplot,   as  the  romances  which  thrilled 
our   youth.     In   those   days    some    boys   thought 
soldiering  the  one  life  worth  living  ;  some,  in  fancy, 
ran  away   to    sea.     Some   loved   tales    of    Piracy, 
and  were  peculiarly  at  home  in  a  Smugglers'  Cave. 
Others   snatched    a   fearful   joy   from   ghosts   and 
bogies.       Others    enjoyed    Brazilian    forests    and 
African    jungles,    hand-to-hand    encounters    with 
gorillas  and   hair-breadth   'scapes   from    watchful 
tigers.     The   present    writer   thought    nothing    so 
delightful    as    Secret    Societies,    and   would    have 
given  his    little   all   to  know  a  password,  a  sign, 
or  a  secret  code.     Perhaps  this  idiosyncrasy  was 
due   to    the   fact   that    in    the    mid    'sixties    every 
paper   teemed   with    allusions   to    Fenianism,  just 
then  a  very  active   force  in  the  political  world  ; 
and    to    Smith    Minus,    in   the    Fourth    Form    at 
Harrow,  there  was  something  unspeakably  attrac- 
tive in  the  thought  of  being  a  "  Head  Centre,"   a 
"  Director,"  or  an  "  Executive  Officer  of  the  Irish 
Republican   Brotherhood,"    or   even   in   the   paler 
glory  of  writing  the  mystic  letters  "  F.B."  or  "  CO." 
after  his  undistinguished  name.     It  is  in  his  account 
of  the  earlier  days  of  Fenianism  that   Sir  Robert 
Anderson  is  so  intensely  interesting.      He  traces  it, 
from  its  origin  in  the  abortive  rebellion  of   1848 
and  that  "  Battle  of  Limerick "  which  Thackeray 
sang,  to  its  formal  inauguration  in   i860,  and  its 


12  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

subsequent  activities  at  home  and  abroad ;  and 
the  narrative  begins,  quite  thrillingly,  with  the 
biography  of  the  famous  spy  Henri  le  Caron, 
who  played  so  striking  a  part  before  the  Commis- 
sion on  Parnellism  and  Crime.  Those  who  wish 
to  learn  these  incidents  in  our  recent  history,  or 
as  much  of  them  as  at  present  can  properly  be 
disclosed,  must  read  Sir  Robert's  book  for  them- 
selves. I  will  not  attempt  even  to  epitomize  it  ; 
and,  indeed,  I  only  mention  it  because  of  the 
"  sidelights  "  which  it  throws,  not  on  Home  Rule, 
but  on  the  part  which  Secret  Societies  have  played 
in  the  fortunes  of  Modern  Europe. 

As  far  as  I  know,  the  only  Englishman — if 
Englishman  he  could  properly  be  called — who  re- 
garded the  Secret  Societies  as  formidable  realities 
was  Lord  Beaconsfield.  As  long  ago  as  1844 — 
long  before  he  had  official  experience  to  guide  him 
— he  wrote,  with  regard  to  his  favourite  Sidonia 
(in  drawing  whom  he  drew  himself) : — 

"  The  catalogue  of  his  acquaintance  in  the  shape 
of  Greeks,  Armenians,  Moors,  Secret  Jews,  Tartars, 
Gipsies,  wandering  Poles,  and  Carbonari  would 
throw  a  curious  light  on  those  subterranean  agencies 
of  which  the  world  in  general  knows  so  little,  but 
which  exercise  so  great  an  influence  on  public 
events." 

Those  were  the  days  when  Disraeli,  a  genius 
whom  no  one  treated  seriously,  was  uttering  his 
inmost  thoughts  through  the  medium  of  romances 


SECRET    SOCIETIES  13 

to  which  fancy  contributed  at  least  as  much  as 
fact.  Then  came  twenty  years  of  constant  activity 
in  politics — that  pursuit  which,  as  Bacon  says,  is 
of  all  pursuits  "  the  most  immersed  in  matter," — 
and,  when  next  he  took  up  the  novelist's  pen,  he 
was  a  much  older  and  more  experienced,  though 
he  would  scarcely  be  a  wiser,  man.  In  1870  he 
startled  the  world  with  "  Lothair  "  ;  and  those  who 
had  the  hardihood  to  fight  their  way  through  all 
the  fashionable  flummery  with  which  the  book 
begins  found  in  the  second  and  third  volumes  a 
profoundly  interesting  contribution  to  the  history 
of  Europe  between  1848  and  1868.  One  of  the 
characters  says  that  "  the  only  strong  things  in 
Europe  are  the  Church  and  the  Secret  Societies  "  ; 
and  the  book  is  a  vivid  narrative  of  the  struggle 
for  life  and  death  between  the  Temporal  Power  of 
the  Papacy  and  the  insurrectionary  movements  in- 
spired by  Garibaldi.  Every  chapter  of  the  book  con- 
tains a  portrait,  and  every  incident  is  drawn  from 
somethingwhich  had  come  under  the  author's  notice 
between  1866  and  1869,  when  he  was  the  leading 
personage  in  the  Tory  Government  and  the  Fenians 
were  making  open  and  secret  war  on  English  rule. 
He  was  describing  the  men  whom  he  knew  and 
the  things  which  he  had  seen,  and  this  fact  makes 
the  book  so  extraordinarily  vivid,  and  won  for  it 
Froude's  enthusiastic  praise.  Every  one  could  re- 
cognize Capel  and  Manning  and  Antonelli  and 
Lord  Bute,  and  all  their  diplomatic  and  fashionable 


14  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

allies  ;  it  required  some  knowledge  of  the  insurrec- 
tionary movements  to  see  in  "  Captain  Bruges  "  a 
portrait  of  General  Cluseret,  commander-in-chief 
of  every  insurgent  army  in  Europe  or  America,  or 
in  Theodora  the  noble  character  of  Jessie  White- 
Mario,  whose  career  of  romantic  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  Freedom  closed  only  in  this  year.1 

"  Madre  Natura  "  in  Italy,  Fenianism  in  America 
and  England,  the  "Mary  Anne"  Societies  of  France, 
and  the  mysterious  alliance  between  all  these 
subterranean  forces,  are  the  themes  of  "  Lothair," 
and  the  State  trials  of  the  time  throw  a  good  deal 
of  light  upon  them  all.  Even  more  mysterious, 
much  harder  to  trace,  and  infinitely  more  enduring 
were  the  operations  of  the  Carbonari — beginning 
with  a  handful  of  charcoal-burners  in  the  forests 
of  Northern  Italy,  and  spreading  thence,  always 
by  woodland  ways,  to  the  centre  and  north  of 
Europe.  They  promoted  the  French  revolutions 
of  1830  and  1848.  Even  Louis  Napoleon' allied 
himself  with  them  in  his  earlier  machinations 
against  Louis  Philippe  and  the  Republic  ;  and  in  the 
Franco-German  War  of  1870  they  rendered  incal- 
culable service  to  the  German  troops  by  guiding 
them  through  the  fastnesses  of  the  Ardennes.  It  is 
one  of  the  characteristics  of  the  Secret  Societies 
that  they  attack  the  established  order,  without, 
apparently,  caring  much  what  that  order  repre- 
sents.    Their  generals  fought  against  England  in 

1  1906. 


SECRET    SOCIETIES  15 

Canada  and  in  Ireland ;  against  the  Northern 
States  in  America  ;  against  Russia  in  the  Danubian 
Principalities.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  in 
1870  the  Carbonari  had  much  sympathy  with  the 
military  absolutism  of  Prussia  ;  but  Prussia  was 
attacking  the  French  Empire,  and  that  was  enough 
for  the  Carbonari. 

Of  course,  as  a  general  rule,  the  Secret  Societies 
of  the  Continent  were  anti-monarchical  and  anti- 
Christian  ;  but  he  who  loves  these  mysterious 
combinations  can  find  plenty  to  interest  him  in 
the  history  of  organizations  which  were  neither 
Republican  nor  Atheistic.  Nothing  could  be 
more  devotedly  monarchical  and  orthodox  than 
the  "Cycle  of  the  White  Rose."  This  Society, 
profoundly  "  secret,"  was  founded  about  the  year 
1727.  It  had  for  its  object  to  unite  all  the 
Cavalier  and  Nonjuring  families  of  North  Wales 
and  Cheshire,  with  a  view  to  concerted  action 
when  next  the  exiled  Stuarts  should  claim  their 
own.  The  headquarters  were  always  at  Wynnstay, 
and  the  Lady  of  Wynnstay  was  always  Patroness. 
The  badge  was  a  White  Rose  in  enamel,  and  the 
list  of  members  was  printed  in  a  circle,  so  that  if 
it  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  Government  no 
one  should  appear  as  ringleader  or  chief.  The 
Cycle  was  for  some  fifty  years  a  real  and  definite 
organization  for  political  ends  ;  but,  as  years  went 
on  and  the  hopes  of  the  Jacobites  perished,  the 
Cycle  degenerated  into  a    mere  dining-club,  and 


16  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

it  expired  in  1850.  Its  last  member  was,  I 
believe,  the  Rev.  Sir  Theophilus  Puleston,  who 
lived  to  see  the  second  Jubilee  of  Queen  Victoria  ; 
and  the  last  Lady  Patroness  died  in  1905. 

Another  Secret  Society  which  once  meant 
practical  mischief  of  no  common  kind  was  that 
of  the  Orangemen.  Though  Orangemen  are 
nowadays  vociferously  loyal,  their  forerunners  are 
grossly  misrepresented  if  it  is  not  true  that,  under 
the  Grand-mastership  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland, 
afterwards  King  Ernest  of  Hanover,  they  organized 
a  treasonable  conspiracy  to  prevent  Queen  Victoria 
from  succeeding  to  the  Throne  of  her  ancestors 
and  to  put  her  uncle  in  her  place.  For  sidelights 
on  this  rather  dark  passage  of  modern  history  the 
curious  reader  is  referred  to  "  Tales  of  my  Father," 
by  "A.  M.  F.,"  and  to  a  sensational  rendering  of 
the  same  story,  called  "  God  Save  the  Queen." 

My  space  is  failing,  and  I  must  forbear  to  enlarge 
on  the  most  familiar  and  least  terrifying  of  all 
"  Secret  Societies."  I  hold  no  brief  for  the  "  Grand 
Orient  of  France,"  even  though  Pius  IX.  may 
once  have  belonged  to  this  or  a  similar  organiza- 
tion ;  but  I  must  profess  that  English  Freemasons 
are  the  most  respectable,  most  jovial,  and  most 
benevolent  of  mankind  ;  and  I  trust  that  they  will 
accept  in  its  true  intention  Cardinal  Manning's 
ambiguously  worded  defence  of  their  craft, 
"  English  Freemasonry  is  a  Goose  Club." 


Ill 

THE    IRISH    PEERAGE 

DRYASDUST  is  proverbially  a  bore,  and  his  forms 
are  Protean.  Thus  there  are  the  Jacobite  Dryas- 
dusts, who  affirm  that  Queen  Victoria  had  no 
higher  dignity  than  that  of  Dowager  Princess  Albert 
of  Saxe-Coburg,  and  deny  that  any  act  of  sove- 
reignty transacted  in  this  country  has  been  valid 
since  that  dark  morning  when  James  II.,  making  the 
best  of  his  way  to  the  Old  Kent  Road,  dropped  the 
Great  Seal  into  the  Thames.  Then  there  are  the 
Constitutional  Dryasdusts,  who  deny  the  existence 
of  a  Cabinet  or  a  Prime  Minister,  and  insist  that 
the  Privy  Council  is  the  only  Ministerial  body 
known  to  the  law  ;  and  the  Ecclesiastical  Dryas- 
dusts, who  affirm  that  the  Church  of  England  is 
really  free  because  the  bishops  are  freely  elected 
by  the  Chapters  of  their  respective  Cathedrals, 
acting  under  licence  from  a  Sovereign  who,  having 
been  anointed,  is  a  Persona  Mixta — part  layman, 
part  ecclesiastic.  At  the  height  of  the  South 
African  War  I  chanced  to  meet  an  Heraldic 
Dryasdust,  who  moaned  like  a  mandrake  over  the 

announcement  that  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  had  just 

17  B 


1 8  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

set  out,  with  his  Yeomanry,  for  the  scene  of  action. 
"  You  mean,"  I  said,  "  that  a  valuable  life  is  need- 
lessly imperilled  ?"  "Not  at  all,"  replied  Dryas- 
dust, with  a  face  as  long  as  a  fiddle-case.  "  A  far 
more  important  consideration  than  the  Duke's  life 
is  involved.  As  Earl-Marshal  he  is  supreme  com- 
mander of  the  forces  of  the  Crown  when  engaged 
in  actual  warfare,  and  the  moment  he  sets  his  foot 
on  African  soil  Lord  Roberts  becomes  subject  to 
his  command.  There  is  no  way  out  of  that  con- 
stitutional necessity,  and  I  regard  the  outlook  as 
very  serious."  And  so  indeed  it  would  have  been, 
had  Dryasdust  been  right. 

I  am  led  to  this  train  of  reflections  by  the  fact 
that  an  eminent  genealogist  has  lately  tried  to 
frighten  the  readers  of  a  Sunday  paper  by  broach- 
ing the  theory  that  all  the  Acts  of  Parliament  passed 
within  the  last  twenty  years  may  have  been  invalid. 
He  does  not  commit  himself  to  the  statement  that 
they  are  invalid,  but  he  insists  that  they  may  be, 
and  he  grounds  his  contention  on  a  clause  of  the 
Act  of  Union.  Concerning  this  clause  he  says, 
following  Sir  William  Anson,  that  it  requires  that 
"  the  number  of  Irish  peers,  not  entitled  by  the 
possession  of  other  peerages  to  an  hereditary  seat 
in  the  House  of  Lords  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
shall  never  fall  below  one  hundred."  Now  it 
seems  that  during  the  last  twenty  years  the  number 
has  fallen  below  a  hundred  ;  therefore  the  House 
of  Lords  has  not  been  properly  constituted,  and 


THE    IRISH    PEERAGE  19 

therefore  its  part  in  legislation  has  been  null  and 
void.  It  is  a  startling  theory,  and  like  most  startling 
theories,  will  probably  turn  out  to  be  nonsense  ; 
but  the  history  of  the  Irish  Peerage,  apart  from 
any  consequences  which  may  be  deduced  from  it, 
is  full  of  interest,  and  not  wholly  free  from  scandal. 
The  Irish  peerage,  as  it  stands  to-day,  comprises 
175  members;  of  these,  28  sit  in  the  House  of 
Lords  as  Representative  Peers,  elected  for  life  by 
their  brethren  ;  82  sit  there  because  they  hold 
English  as  well  as  Irish  peerages  ;  and  the  re- 
mainder, being  merely  Irish  peers  and  not  Repre- 
sentatives, do  not  sit  in  the  House  of  Lords,  but 
are  eligible  for  the  House  of  Commons.  In  this 
respect  their  state  is  more  gracious  than  that  of  the 
Scotch  peers,  who  cannot  be  elected  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  therefore,  unless  they  can  get 
themselves  chosen  to  be  Representative  Peers  of 
Scotland,  are  excluded  from  Parliament  for  ever. 
Still,  though  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  is  a 
desirable  possession,  a  mere  title  has  its  charms. 

It  used  to  be  said  that  when  Mr.  Smith  the 
banker,  who  lived  in  Whitehall,  asked  George  III. 
for  the  entree  of  the  Horse  Guards,  the  King  replied, 
"  I  can't  do  that ;  but  I  wish  to  make  you  an  Irish 
Peer."  However,  the  true  version  of  the  story 
seems  to  be  that  which  is  given  in  the  "  Life  of  the 
Marquis  of  Granby." 

"In  1787  the  owner  of  Rutland  House  desired 
to  increase  the  private  entree  into  Hyde  Park  to  the 


20  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

dimensions  of  a  carriage  entrance,  and  asked 
Charles,  fourth  Duke  of  Rutland,  to  support  the 
necessary  application  to  the  King.  The  Duke, 
who  was  then  Viceroy  of  Ireland,  replied,  'You 
will  let  me  know  whether  ye  application  is  to  be 
made  to  Lord  Orford,  who  is  ye  Ranger  of  ye 
Park,  or  to  ye  King  himself :  in  ye  latter  case  I 
would  write  to  Lord  Sydney  att  ye  same  time  ;  if 
it  be  to  the  King  a  greater  object  might  be  easier 
accomplished  than  this  trifle,  as  I  know  he  is  very 
particular  about  his  Parks  ;  at  least  he  is  so  about 
St.  James  Park,  for  he  made  a  man  an  Irish  Peer 
to  keep  him  in  Good  Humour  for  having  refused 
him  permission  to  drive  his  carriage  through  ye 
Horse  Guards.'  " 

Lord  Palmerston,  himself  an  Irish  peer,  used 
to  say  that  an  Irish  peerage  was  the  most  con- 
venient of  all  dignities,  as  it  secured  its  owner 
social  precedence  while  it  left  him  free  to  pursue 
a  Parliamentary  career.  At  the  same  time,  greatly 
as  he  enjoyed  his  position,  Palmerston  never  would 
take  the  oaths  or  comply  with  the  legal  formalities 
necessary  to  entitle  him  to  vote  for  the  Irish  Repre- 
sentative Peers  ;  and  the  reason  for  this  refusal 
was  characteristic  alike  of  an  adroit  politician  and 
of  the  unscrupulous  age  in  which  he  lived.  An 
Irish  peer  who  has  proved  his  right  to  vote  for  the 
Representative  Peers,  is  eligible  for  election  as  a 
Representative,  and  Palmerston  feared  that  his 
political  opponents,  wishing  to  get  him  out  of  the 


THE    IRISH    PEERAGE  21 

House  of  Commons  into  the  comparative  obscurity 
and  impotence  of  the  House  of  Lords,  would  elect 
him  a  Representative  Peer  in  spite  of  himself,  and 
so  effectually  terminate  his  political  activities.  In 
the  days  immediately  succeeding  Palmerston  a 
conspicuous  ornament  of  the  Irish  Peerage  was 
the  second  Marquis  of  Abercorn.  He  had  no  need 
to  trouble  himself  about  Representative  arrange- 
ments, for  he  sat  in  the  House  of  Lords  as  a 
peer  of  Great  Britain,  but  his  hereditary  con- 
nexion with  the  North  of  Ireland,  his  great  estates 
there,  and  the  political  influence  which  they  gave 
him,  made  him,  in  a  very  real  sense,  an  Irish  peer. 
He  was  Lord-Lieutenant  from  1866  to  1868,  and 
during  his  viceroyalty  Disraeli  (who  subsequently 
drew  his  portrait  in  "  Lothair  ")  conferred  upon  him 
the  rare  honour  of  an  Irish  dukedom.  It  was 
rumoured  that  he  wished,  in  consideration  of  his 
80,000  acres  in  Tyrone  and  Donegal,  to  become 
the  Duke  of  Ulster,  but  was  reminded  that  Ulster 
was  a  Royal  title,  borne  already  by  the  Duke  of 
Edinburgh.  Be  that  as  it  may,  he  stuck  to  his 
Scotch  title,  and  became  Duke  of  Abercorn.  Down 
to  that  time  the  Duke  of  Leinster  had  been  the 
sole  Irish  duke,  and  went  by  the  nickname  of 
0  Ireland's  Only."  To  him,  as  an  old  friend,  the 
newly  created  Duke  of  Abercorn  wrote  a  mock 
apology  for  having  invaded  his  monopoly  ;  but 
the  Duke  of  Leinster  was  equal  to  the  occasion, 
and  wrote  back  that  he  was  quite  content  to  be 


22  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

henceforward  the  Premier  Duke  of  Ireland.  When, 
six  months  later,  Disraeli  was  driven  out  of  office, 
he  conferred  an  Irish  barony  on  a  faithful  sup- 
porter, Colonel  M'Clintock,  who  was  made  Lord 
Rathdonnell  ;  and  it  was  generally  understood 
that,  by  arrangement  between  the  leaders  on  both 
sides,  no  more  Irish  peerages  were  to  be  created. 
This  understanding  held  good  till  Mr.  George 
Curzon,  proceeding  to  India  as  Viceroy  and  con- 
templating a  possible  return  to  Parliament  when 
his  term  of  office  expired,  persuaded  Lord  Salis- 
bury to  make  him  Lord  Curzon  of  Kedleston  in 
the  Peerage  of  Ireland. 

But,  after  all,  the  Irish  Peerage  of  to-day  is  to 
a  great  extent  the  product  of  the  Irish  Union. 
"  There  is  no  crime  recorded  in  history — I  do  not 
except  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew — which 
will  compare  for  a  moment  with  the  means  by 
which  the  Union  was  carried."  The  student  of 
men  and  moods,  having  no  clue  to  guide  him, 
would  probably  attribute  this  outburst  to  Mr. 
Gladstone  at  some  period  between  his  first  and 
second  Home  Rule  Bills  ;  and  he  would  be  right. 
For  my  own  part,  I  can  scarcely  follow  the  allu- 
sion to  St.  Bartholomew,  but  beyond  doubt  the 
measures  employed  by  the  English  Government 
in  order  to  secure  the  Union  were  both  cruel  and 
base.  It  is  the  baseness  with  which  we  are  just 
now  concerned.  In  order  to  carry  the  Union  it 
was    necessary  to   persuade   the   Irish    Houses  of 


THE    IRISH    PEERAGE  23 

Lords  and  Commons,  and  to  capture  the  whole 
machinery  of  bribery  and  terrorism  which  directed 
the  Irish  Parliament.  As  that  blameless  publicist 
Sir  T.  Erskine  May  tranquilly  observes,  "  corrupt 
interests  could  only  be  overcome  by  corruption." 
The  policy  of  out-corrupting  the  corruptest  was 
pursued  with  energy  and  resolution.  Each  patron 
of  Irish  boroughs  who  was  ready  to  part  with  them 
received  £7500  for  each  seat.  Lord  Downshire 
got  £52,000  for  seven  seats  ;  Lord  Ely  £45,000 
for  six.  The  total  amount  paid  in  compensa- 
tion for  the  surrender  of  electoral  powers  was 
£1,260,000.  In  addition  to  these  pecuniary  in- 
ducements, honours  were  lavishly  distributed  as 
bribes.  Five  Irish  peers  were  called  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  twenty  were  advanced  a  step  in  the 
peerage,  and  twenty-two  new  peers  were  created. 
It  would  be  invidious,  and  perhaps  actionable,  to 
attach  proper  names  to  the  amazing  histories  of 
Corruption  by  Title  which  are  narrated  in  the 
Private  Correspondence  of  the  Viceroy,  Lord 
Cornwallis,  and  the  published  Memoirs  of  Sir 
Jonah  Barrington.  Even  that  sound  loyalist  Mr. 
Lecky  was  constrained  to  admit  that  "  the  majority 
of  Irish  titles  are  historically  connected  with 
memories  not  of  honour  but  of  shame."  On  the 
22nd  January  1799  one  member  of  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons  took  his  bribe  in  the  brief  in- 
terval between  his  speech  for,  and  his  vote  against 
a  resolution  affirming  the  right  of  the  Irish  nation 


24  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

to  an  independent  Legislature.  Another  aspirant 
to  the  peerage  "  made  and  sang  songs  against  the 
Union  in  1799,  and  made  and  sang  songs  for  it 
in  1800."  He  got  his  deserts.  A  third  secured 
£30,000  for  his  surrendered  boroughs,  a  peerage 
for  himself,  and  for  his  brother  in  Holy  Orders  an 
archbishopric  so  wealthy  that  its  fortunate  owner 
became  a  peer,  and  subsequently  an  earl,  on  his 
own  account.  The  scandalous  tale  might  be  in- 
definitely prolonged  ;  but  enough  has  been  said 
to  show  why  it  is  difficult  to  shed  tears  when  these 
strangely-engendered  peerages  sink  below  the 
prescribed  number  of  a  hundred. 


IV 

OMITTED    SILHOUETTES 

Last  year  1  I  ventured  to  submit  for  public  inspec- 
tion a  small  collection  of  Social  Silhouettes.  From 
time  to  time  during  the  last  few  months  I  have 
received  several  kind  enquiries  about  Omitted  Por- 
traits. For  instance,  there  is  the  Undertaker. 
Perhaps  a  friend  will  write :  "  Dickens  made 
capital  fun  out  of  Mr.  Mould  and  the  '  Hollow  Elm 
Tree.'  Couldn't  you  try  your  hand  at  something 
of  the  same  kind  ? "  Another  writes,  perhaps  a 
little  bluntly  :  "  Why  don't  you  give  us  the  Bar- 
rister ?  He  must  be  an  awfully  easy  type  to  do." 
A  third  says,  with  subtler  tact :  "  I  feel  that,  since 
Thackeray  left  us,  yours  is  the  only  pen  which  can 
properly  handle  the  Actor  " — or  the  Painter,  or 
the  Singer,  or  the  Bellringer,  or  the  Beadle,  as  the 
case  may  be.  Now,  to  these  enquiries,  conceived, 
as  I  know  them  all  to  be,  in  the  friendliest  spirit, 
my  answer  varies  a  little,  according  to  the  type 
suggested.  With  regard  to  the  Barrister,  I  stated 
quite  early  in  my  series  that  I  did  not  propose 
to    deal   with   him,   because    he    had   been   drawn 

1  1906. 

25 


26  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

repeatedly  by  the  master-hands  of  fiction,  and 
because  the  lapse  of  years  had  wrought  so  little 
change  in  the  type  that  Serjeant  Snubbin,  and 
Fitz-Roy  Timmins,  and  Sir  Thomas  Underwood, 
and  Mr.  Furnival,  and  Mr.  Chaffanbrass  were  por- 
traits which  needed  no  retouching.  I  must,  indeed, 
admit  that  the  growth  of  hair  upon  the  chin  and 
upper  lip  is  a  marked  departure  from  type,  and 
that  a  moustached  K.C.  is  as  abnormal  a  being  as 
a  bearded  woman  or  a  three-headed  nightingale  ; 
but  the  variation  is  purely  external,  and  the  true 
inwardness  of  the  Barrister  remains  what  it  was 
when  Dickens  and  Thackeray  and  Trollope  drew 
him.  So,  again,  with  regard  to  the  Family  Soli- 
citor ;  as  long  as  men  can  study  the  methods  of 
Mr.  Tulkinghorn  (of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields)  and 
Mr.  Putney  Giles  (of  the  same  learned  quarter) 
they  may  leave  Mr.  Jerome  K.  Jerome  in  undis- 
turbed possession  of  his  stage-lawyer,  who  "  dresses 
in  the  costume  of  the  last  generation  but  seven, 
never  has  any  office  of  his  own,  and  (with  the  aid 
of  a  crimson  bag)  transacts  all  his  business  at  his 
clients'  houses." 

When  I  am  asked  why  I  do  not  describe  the 
Painter,  my  reply  is  partly  the  same.  We  have 
got  Gaston  Phoebus,  and  Clive  Newcome,  and 
Claude  Mellot,  and  the  goodly  company  of  Trilby, 
and  we  shall  not  easily  improve  upon  those  por- 
traits, whether  highly  finished  or  merely  sketched. 
But  in  this  case  I  have  another  reason  for  reticence. 


OMITTED    SILHOUETTES  27 

I  know  a  good  many  painters,  who  about  this  time 
of  year  bid  me  to  their  studios.  I  have  experienced 
before  now  the  delicate  irritability  of  the  artistic 
genius,  and  I  know  that  a  reverential  reticence  is 
my  safest  course.  Conversely,  my  reason  for  not 
describing  the  Actor  is  that  I  really  do  not  know 
him  well  enough.  An  actor  off  the  stage  is  about 
as  exhilarating  an  object  as  a  theatre  by  daylight. 
The  brilliancy  and  the  glamour  have  departed  ; 
the  savour  of  sawdust  and  orange-peel  remains. 
Let  us  render  all  honour  to  the  histrion  when  his 
foot  is  on  his  native  boards  ;  but  if  we  are  wise 
we  shall  eschew  in  private  life  the  society  of  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Vincent  Crummies,  nor  open  our  door  too 
widely  to  the  tribe  of  Costigan  and  Fotheringay. 

The  mention  of  that  great  actress's  name  (for 
did  not  Emily  Costigan,  afterwards  Lady  Mirabel, 
figure  as  "  Miss  Fotheringay "  on  the  provincial 
stage  ?)  reminds  me  that,  according  to  some  of 
my  critics,  women  played  too  rare  and  too 
secluded  a  part  in  my  series  of  "  Typical  Develop- 
ments." It  is  only  too  true,  and  no  one  knows 
as  well  as  the  author  the  amount  of  brilliancy  and 
interest  which  has  been  forfeited  thereby.  But 
really  it  is  a  sacred  awe  that  has  made  me  mute. 
Even  to-day,  as  I  write,  I  am  smarting  under  a 
rebuke  recently  administered  to  me,  at  a  public 
gathering,  by  an  outraged  matron.  This  lady 
belongs  to  the  political  section  of  her  tribe  ; 
holds  man,  poor  man  !  in  proper  contempt ;  and 


28  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

clamours  on  Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman's 
doorstep  for  that  suffrage  which  is  to  make  her 
truly  free.  At  present  she  esteems  herself  little 
better  than  a  Squaw,  and  has  been  heard  to 
declare,  in  moments  of  expansive  eloquence,  that 
she  was  not  created  to  be  the  Toy  of  Man — a 
declaration  in  which  her  hearers  most  heartily 
concurred.  Well,  this  stern  guardian  of  her  sex's 
rights  recently  took  me  to  task  in  a  public  place 
for  the  levity  with  which  I  had  criticized  a  gather- 
ing of  political  ladies,  and  my  nerve  has  scarcely 
rallied  from  the  sudden  onslaught.  Had  I  been 
more  myself  I  might  even  yet  have  tried  my  un- 
skilled hand  at  female  portraiture.  Perhaps,  in 
the  spirit  of  that  Cambridge  professor  who  calls 
William  II.  "quite  the  nicest  Emperor  I  know,"  I 
might  have  begun  in  the  most  illustrious  circles, 
and  have  sketched  the  stone-laying  and  bazaar- 
opening  activities  of  Royal  Princesses.  Or,  yield- 
ing precedence  to  the  Church,  I  might  have 
discoursed  of  Episcopal  ladies  and  have  traced 
the  influence  of  a  tradition  received  from  the 
beatified  Mrs.  Proudie.  "  We  had  a  very  nice 
Ordination  this  Trinity,"  says  one  lady  of  this 
class.  "  The  Bishop  and  I  were  much  disap- 
pointed by  the  poor  response  of  the  laity  to  our 
appeal,"  wrote  another.  When  in  May  1899 
the  Archbishops  were  playing  at  a  Court  for  the 
trial  of  Ritualism,  Episcopal  ladies  sate  knitting 
by  the  judgment-seat,  and  stared  at  the  incrimi- 


OMITTED    SILHOUETTES  29 

nated  clergymen,  as  the  tricoteuses  of  the  French 
Revolution  may  have  stared  at  the  victims  of  the 
guillotine,  or  as  Miss  Squeers  peered  through  the 
keyhole  at  the  flagellation  of  Smike.  Or  again, 
on  a  lowlier  rung  of  the  Ecclesiastical  ladder,  I 
might  have  drawn  the  Parochial  Worker — the 
woman  of  waterproof  and  gingham,  the  distributor 
of  tracts,  the  disciplinarian  of  the  Sunday  School, 
the  presiding  spirit  of  Mothers'  Meetings.  At  a 
General  Election  this  type  of  lady  varies  her 
activities — canvasses  for  the  Conservative  candi- 
date, and  tells  the  gaping  washerwomen  that 
Mr.  Lloyd-George  wishes  to  convert  the  Welsh 
cathedrals  into  music-halls  for  the  Eisteddfod. 
Of  all  Parochial  Workers  the  highest  type  is  the 
Deaconess  ;  and  not  long  ago,  in  a  parish  with 
which  I  am  conversant,  the  Deaconess  and  the 
Curate  used  to  do  their  parochial  rounds  on  a 
double  bicycle,  to  the  infinite  amusement  of  the 
gutter-children  and  the  serious  perturbation  of  the 
severely  orthodox.  There  was  a  picture  worthy 
of  the  pen  and  pencil  of  Thackeray,  but  it  faded 
all  too  soon  into  the  blurred  commonplace  of 
matrimony. 

The  Deaconess  may  be  called  the  Marine  of 
the  Church's  army,  with  one  foot  on  sea  and  one 
on  shore — only  half  a  Worldling,  yet  not  quite  a 
Nun.  With  ladies  of  the  last-named  type,  my 
acquaintance  has  been  prolonged  and  intimate. 
Of  their  excellence  and  devotion  it  would  be  im- 


3o  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

pertinent  to  speak  ;  but  I  may  say  without  offence 
that  some  of  the  ablest,  most  agreeable,  and  most 
amusing  women  I  have  known  I  have  encountered 
in  the  Cloister.  But,  alas  !  even  into  the  Cloister 
the  serpent  of  political  guile  will  wend  his  sinuous 
way  ;  nor  could  I,  though  her  friend,    commend 

the  action  of  Sister  G M when,  in  order 

to  prevent  a  patient  in  a  Convalescent  Home  from 
voting  for  a  Radical  candidate,  she  kept  his  trousers 
under  lock  and  key  till  the  poll  was  over. 

"  Old  age,"  it  has  been  bitterly  said,  "  when  it 
can  no  longer  set  a  bad  example,  gives  good 
advice ; "  and  when,  as  sometimes  happens,  I  am 
asked  to  hortate  my  younger  fellow-citizens,  one  of 
my  most  emphatic  lessons  is  a  Reverence  for 
Womanhood,  even  in  its  least  ideal  aspects.  This, 
I  declare  to  be  an  essential  attribute  of  the  ideal 
character — of  that  manhood,  at  once  beautiful 
and  good,  to  which  the  philosophers  have  taught 
us  to  aspire  ;  and,  lest  I  should  seem  to  be  vio- 
lating my  own  oft-repeated  precept,  I  tear  myself 
from  a  fascinating  theme. 


V 

DOCTORS    AND    DOCTORING 

Sydney  Smith,  who  was  fond  of  quacking  his 
parishioners,  and  had  a  poor  opinion  of  "  pro- 
fessional and  graduated  homicides,"  observes  that 
"the  Sixth  Commandment  is  suspended  by  one 
medical  diploma  from  the  North  of  England  to 
the  South."  Personally,  I  have  experienced  the 
attentions  of  the  Faculty  north,  south,  east,  and 
west,  and  I  began  in  London.  In  my  first  appear- 
ance on  this  planet  I  was  personally  conducted 
by  a  smart  gentleman,  who  came  straight  from  a 
dinner-party,  in  a  large  white  cravat  and  turquoise 
studs.  Those  studs  still  exist,  and  have  descended, 
with  the  practice,  to  his  grandson.  May  they 
beam  on  births  more  propitious  than  my  own. 

My  knowledge  of  the  first  act  of  life's  drama 
is  necessarily  traditional.  But,  as  I  approach  the 
second,  memory  begins  to  operate.  I  seem  to  re- 
member a  black  silhouette  of  a  gentleman  in  an 
elbow-chair,  with  a  pigtail  and  knee-breeches  ; 
and  this  icon  was  revered  as  the  likeness  of  "  old 

Doctor  P ."     This  "  old  Dr.  P.'s  "  son,  "  Tom 

P ,"   was   a   sturdy   stripling   of   seventy  odd, 

31 


32  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

who  had  never  used  a  stethoscope,  and  dismissed 
a  rival  practitioner  who  talked  about  heart-sounds 
as  "  an  alarmist.  "  To  these  succeeded  a  third 
generation  of  the  same  drug-stained  dynasty,  repre- 
sented to  me  by  a  gentleman  in  shiny  black,  who 
produced  a  large  gold  watch  when  he  felt  one's 
pulse,  and  said  "  Hah  ! "  when  he  looked  at  one's 
tongue.  These  three  generations,  for  something 
more  than  a  century,  monopolized  all  the  best 
practice  of  Loamshire,  were  immensely  respected, 
and  accumulated  a  great  deal  of  money.  Echoes 
of  the  dialogue  between  doctor  and  patient  still 
haunt  the  ear  of  memory : — 

Nervous  and  Dyspeptic  Lady.  "  Do  you  know,  Dr. 
P.,  I  felt  so  very  uncomfortable  after  luncheon — 
quite  a  sensation  of  sinking  through  the  floor. 
Of  course  I  had  some  brandy  and  water — about 
half  and  half — at  once,  but  I  feel  that  I  ought  to 
have  a  little  champagne  at  dinner.  Nothing  helps 
me  so  much." 

Dr.  P.  "  Your  ladyship  is  no  inconsiderable 
physician.  I  was  about  to  make  the  same  sugges- 
tion.    But  pray  be  careful  that  it  is  a  dry  wine." 

All  this  was  very  comfortable  and  friendly,  and 
tended  to  promote  the  best  relations  between 
doctor  and  patient.  I  do  not  recollect  that  the 
doctor  was  supposed  to  effect  cures ;  but  his 
presence  at  a  deathbed  created  the  pleasant  sense 
that  all  had  been  done  which  could  be  done,  and 
that  the  patient  was  dying  with  the  dignity  proper 


DOCTORS    AND    DOCTORING  33 

to  his  station.  It  may  be  remarked,  in  passing, 
that  the  two  elder  generations  did  all  their  rounds, 
early  and  late,  summer  and  winter,  on  horseback  ; 
while  the  third  subsided  into  a  brougham  drawn 
by  a  pair  of  horses  afflicted  with  stringhalt,  and 
presumably  bought  cheap  on  account  of  that 
infirmity. 

So  much  for  the  men.  What  was  their  method  ? 
To  my  infant  palate  the  oils  of  castor  and  cod 
were  as  familiar  as  mother's  milk.  I  dwelt  in  a 
land  flowing  with  rhubarb  and  magnesia.  The 
lively  leech  was  a  household  pet.  "  Two  nocturnes 
in  blue  and  an  arrangement  in  black,"  as  the 
^Esthete  said,  were  of  frequent  occurrence.  But 
other  parts  of  the  system  were  more  palatable.  I 
seem  to  have  drunk  beer  from  my  earliest  infancy. 
A  glass  of  port  wine  at  eleven,  with  a  teaspoonful 
of  bark  in  it,  was  the  recognized  tonic,  and  brandy 
(which  the  doctor,  who  loved  periphrasis,  always 
called  "  the  domestic  stimulant  ")  was  administered 
whenever  one  looked  squeamish,  while  mulled 
claret  was  "  exhibited  "  as  a  soporific.  The  notion 
of  pouring  all  this  stuff  down  a  child's  throat 
sounds  odd  to  a  generation  reared  on  Apollinaris 
and  barley-water,  but  it  had  this  one  advantage — 
that  when  one  grew  up  it  was  impossible  to  make 
one  drunk. 

From  childhood  we  pass  on  to  schooldays. 
Wild  horses  should  not  drag  from  me  the  name 
of   the    seminary  where    I    was   educated,   for   its 

C 


34  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

medical  arrangements  left  a  good  deal  to  be  desired. 
There  were  three  doctors  in  this  place,  and  they 
shared  the  care  of  some  six  hundred  boys.  Dr.  A. 
was  certainly  very  old,  and  was  reputed  to  be  very 
good,  insomuch  that  his  admirers  said  that,  if  they 
were  dying,  they  should  wish  to  have  Dr.  A.  with 
them,  as  he  was  better  than  any  clergyman.  If, 
however,  they  were  so  carnally-minded  as  to  wish 
to  recover,  they  sent  for  Dr.  B.,  a  bluff  gentleman, 
who  told  his  patients  that  they  were  not  half  as  ill 
as  they  thought,  and  must  pull  themselves  together 
— a  prescription  which,  if  there  was  nothing  the 
matter,  answered  admirably.  The  third  was  a 
grievous  gentleman,  who  took  a  dark  view  of  life, 
and,  sitting  by  my  sick-bed,  would  inform  me  of 
the  precarious  condition  of  a  schoolfellow,  who,  to 
use  his  own  phrase,  was  "  slipping  through  his 
fingers,"  and  "  had  no  more  constitution  than  a 
fly."  Regarding  this  triumvirate  in  the  light  of 
my  subsequent  experience,  I  cannot  affect  surprise 
that  there  were  fifteen  deaths  among  the  boys 
during  the  five  years  that  I  was  in  the  school. 

From  the  anonymous  school  I  proceeded  to  an 
anonymous  university,  where  the  medical  world 
was  dominated  by  the  bland  majesty  of  Sir  Omicron 
Pie  (the  name  is  Trollope's,  but  it  will  serve).  Who 
that  ever  saw  them  can  forget  that  stately  bearing, 
that  Jove-like  brow,  that  sublime  air  of  omniscience 
and  omnipotence  ?  Who  that  ever  heard  it,  that 
even   flow  of  mellifluous  eloquence  and  copious 


DOCTORS    AND    DOCTORING  35 

narrative  ?  Who  that  ever  experienced  it,  the 
underlying  kindness  of  heart  ? 

A  nervous  undergraduate  is  ushered  into  the 
consulting-room,  and  the  great  man  advances 
with  a  paternal  smile. 

"  Mr.  Bumpstead  ?  Ah  !  I  think  I  was  at  school 
with  your  good  father.  No  ?  Then  it  must  have 
been  your  uncle.  You  are  very  like  him.  We 
ran  a  neck-and-neck  race  at  the  University.  I 
won  the  Gold  Medal,  and  he  was  proxime.  In 
those  days  I  little  thought  of  settling  down  in 
Oxbridge.  I  had  destined  myself  for  a  London 
practice  ;  but  Sir  Thomas  Watson — you  have 
heard  of  '  Watson's  style  '  ?  He  was  the  Cicero 
of  Medicine — well,  Watson  said,  <  No,  my  dear 
Pie,  it  won't  do.  In  ten  years  you  will  be  at 
the  head  of  the  profession,  and  will  have  made 
£100,000.  But,  mark  my  words,  the  blade  will 
wear  out  the  scabbard.  You  are  not  justified  in 
risking  your  life.'  I  was  disappointed,  of  course. 
All  young  men  like  the  idea  of  fame.  But  I  saw 
that  Watson  was  right,  and  I  came  here,  and  found 
my  life's  work.  The  Medical  School  was  then  in 
a  very  decayed  condition,  and  I  have  made  it  what 
it  is.     Why  am  I  telling  you  all  this ? " 

{Enter  the  butler.)  u  Please,  Sir  Omicron,  you've 
an  appointment  at  Battle-axe  Castle  at  four  o'clock, 
and  the  carriage  is  at  the  door." 

Sir  O.  P.  "  Ah  !  well.  I  must  tell  you  the 
rest    another    day.      Let    me   see,   what    was    the 


36  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

matter  ?  Palpitation  ?  Let  me  listen  for  a  moment. 
It  is  as  I  thought — only  a  little  functional  irrita- 
bility. Lead  a  sensible  life  ;  avoid  excess  ;  cultivate 
the  philosophic  temper.  Take  this  prescription, 
and  come  again  next  week.  Thank  you,  thank 
you." 

Fortified  by  four  years  of  Sir  Omicron's  care,  I 
came  up  to  London  somewhere  between  1870  and 
1880.  The  practice  of  the  West  End  was  then 
divided  between  three  men — Sir  A.  B.,  Sir  C.  D., 
and  Sir  E.  F. 

Sir  A.  B.  was  bluff  and  brutal,  fashioned  himself 
on  the  traditions  of  Abernethy,  and  ruled  his  patients 
by  sheer  terrorism.  He  had  an  immense  influence 
over  hysterical  women  and  weak-minded  men,  and 
people  who  might  otherwise  have  resented  his 
ursine  manner  were  reconciled  to  it  by  the  know- 
ledge that  he  officially  inspected  the  most  illustrious 
Tongue  in  the  kingdom. 

His  principal  rival  was  Sir  C.  D.,  who  ruled  by 
love.  "  Well,  my  dear  sir,  there  is  not  much  the 
matter.  A  day  or  two's  hunting  will  set  you  right. 
You  don't  ride  ?  Ah  !  well,  it  doesn't  much  matter. 
A  fortnight  at  Monte  Carlo  will  do  just  as  well. 
All  you  want  is  change  of  scene  and  plenty  of 
amusement." 

"  As  to  your  ladyship's  diet,  it  should  be  light 
and  nutritious.  I  should  recommend  you  to  avoid 
beafsteaks  and  boiled  mutton.  A  little  turtle  soup, 
some  devilled  whitebait,  and  a  slice  of  a  turkey 


DOCTORS    AND    DOCTORING  37 

truffe  would  be  the  sort  of  dinner  to  suit  you.  If 
the  insomnia  is  at  all  urgent,  I  have  found  a  light 
supper  of  pate  de  foie  gras  work  wonders." 

Sir  E.  F.  operated  on  a  theological  system. 
His  discourse  on  the  Relations  between  Natural 
and  Revealed  Religion  profoundly  impressed  those 
who  heard  it  for  the  first  time,  and  his  tractate 
on  Medical  Missions  in  India  ran  into  a  third 
edition.  In  his  waiting-room  one  found,  instead 
of  last  month's  Punch  or  the  Christmas  number 
of  Madame,  devotional  works  inscribed  "  From  his 
grateful  patient,  the  author."  In  his  consulting- 
room  a  sacred  picture  of  large  dimensions  crowned 
the  mantelpiece,  and  signed  portraits  of  bishops 
whom  he  had  delivered  from  dyspepsia  adorned 
the  walls.  Ritualistic  clergy  frequented  him  in 
great  numbers,  and — what  was  better  still — re- 
commended their  congregations  to  the  "  beloved 
physician."  Ecclesiastically-minded  laymen  de- 
lighted in  him,  and  came  away  with  a  comfortable 
conviction,  syllogistically  arranged,  that  (1)  one's 
first  duty  is  to  maintain  one's  health  ;  (2)  whatever 
one  likes  is  healthy  ;  therefore  (3)  one's  first  duty 
is  to  like  exactly  as  one  likes. 

A  water-drinking  adherent  of  Mr.  Gladstone  once 
saw  that  eminent  man  crowning  a  banquet  of 
champagne  with  a  glass  of  undeniable  port.  "  Oh  ! 
Mr.  Gladstone,"  he  exclaimed  in  the  bitterness  of 
his  soul,  "  what  would  Sir  E.  F.  say  if  he  could 
see  you  mixing  your  liquors  ?  "     The  great  man's 


38  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

defence  was  ready  to  his  hand  :  "  Sir  E.  F.  assures 
me  that,  if  I  let  fifteen  minutes  elapse  between  two 
kinds  of  wine,  there  is  no  mixture." 

Somehow  these  lively  oracles  of  Sir  E.  F.'s,  with 
which  I  was  always  coming  in  contact,  left  on  my 
mind  a  dim  impression  that  he  must  have  been 
related  to  the  doctor  who  attended  Little  Nell  and 
prescribed  the  remedies  which  the  landlady  had 
already  applied  :  "  Everybody  said  he  was  a  very 
shrewd  doctor  indeed,  and  knew  perfectly  well 
what  people's  constitutions  were,  which  there 
appears  some  reason  to  suppose  he  did." 


VI 

MOURNING 

My  infant  mind  was  "  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn," 
in  the  form  of  a  book  called,  by  a  strange  mis- 
nomer, a  "  Book  of  Useful  Knowledge."  It  was 
there  stated,  if  my  memory  serves  me,  that  "  the 
Chinese  mourn  in  yellow,  but  Kings  and  Cardinals 
mourn  in  purple."  In  what  do  modern  English 
people  mourn  ?  That  is  the  subject  of  to-day's 
enquiry. 

Lord  Acton,  in  one  of  his  most  impressive  pas- 
sages, speaks  of  England  as  living  under  "  insti- 
tutions which  incorporate  tradition  and  prolong 
the  reign  of  the  dead."  But  the  very  notion  of 
"  prolonging  the  reign  of  the  dead "  is  an  ana- 
chronism in  an  age  which  forgets  its  friends  the 
moment  it  has  buried  them.  li  Out  of  sight,  out  of 
mind "  is  an  adage  which  nowadays  verifies  itself 
with  startling  rapidity.  Mourning  is  as  much  out 
of  date  as  Suttee  ;  and,  as  to  the  Widow's  Cap,  the 
admirable  Signora  Vesey  Neroni  in  "  Barchester 
Towers "  was  only  a  little  in  advance  of  her  age 
when  she  exclaimed,  "  The  death  of  twenty  hus- 
bands should  not  make  me  undergo  such  a  penance. 

39 


40  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

It  is  as  much  a  relic  of  paganism  as  the  sacrifice 
of  a  Hindoo  woman  at  the  burning  of  her  husband's 
body.  If  not  so  bloody,  it  is  quite  as  barbarous 
and  quite  as  useless." 

In  days  gone  by,  a  death  in  a  family  extinguished 
all  festivity.  Engagements  were  cancelled,  social 
plans  were  laid  aside,  and  the  mourners  went 
into  retreat  for  a  twelvemonth.  Men  wore  black 
trousers;  women  swathed  themselves  in  black  crape. 
"  Mourning  Jewellery  " — hideous  combinations  of 
jet  and  bogwood — twinkled  and  jingled  round  the 
necks  of  the  bereaved,  and  widows  wrote  on  letter- 
paper  which  was  virtually  black,  with  a  small  white 
space  in  the  middle  of  the  sheet.  Harry  Foker, 
we  know,  honoured  his  father's  memory  by  having 
his  brougham  painted  black  ;  and  I  have  known 
a  lady  who,  when  she  lost  her  husband,  had  her 
boudoir  lined  with  black  velvet,  after  the  fashion 
of  Lord  Glenallan  in  "  The  Antiquary." 

But  nowadays  people  shrink  (with  amiable  con- 
siderateness)  from  thus  inflicting  their  griefs  on 
their  friends  ;  and  if  (as  we  must  in  charity  assume) 
they  feel  emotion,  they  studiously  conceal  it  in 
their  own  bosoms.  The  ball  follows  the  funeral 
with  a  celerity  and  a  frank  joyousness  which  suggest 
a  Wake  ;  and  the  keen  pursuers  of  pleasure  protest, 
with  quite  a  religious  air,  that  for  their  own  part 
they  would  think  it  absolutely  wicked  to  sorrow 
as  those  without  hope.  Weedless  widows,  be- 
comingly   "gowned,"   as    Ladies'    Papers   say,    in 


MOURNING  41 

pale  grey  or  black  and  white,  sacrifice  to  propriety 
by  forswearing  the  Opera  or  the  Racecourse  for 
twelve  months  or  so,  but  find  a  little  fresh  air  on 
the  River  or  at  Hurlingham  absolutely  necessary 
for  health  ;  and,  if  they  dine  out  quietly  or  even 
give  a  little  dance  at  home,  are  careful  to  protest 
that  they  have  lost  all  pleasure  in  life,  but  must 
struggle  to  keep  up  for  the  sake  of  the  dear  children. 
Surely,  as  Master  Shallow  says,  "  good  phrases  are, 
and  ever  were,  very  commendable."  The  old- 
fashioned  manifestations  of  mourning  were  no 
doubt  overdone,  but  the  modern  disregard  of  the 
dead  seems  to  me  both  heartless  and  indecent. 

The  supreme  exemplar  of  Mourning  was,  of 
course,  Queen  Victoria.  During  her  reign,  and  in 
her  personal  practice,  the  custom  of  Mourning 
reached  its  highest  point  of  persistence  and  solem- 
nity. In  1844  Lady  Lyttelton,  who  was  governess 
to  the  present  King  and  his  sister  the  Princess 
Royal,  wrote  from  Court,  "  We  are  such  a  '  bound- 
less contiguity  of  shade '  just  now."  The  imme- 
diate cause  of  that  shade  was  the  death  of|  Prince 
Albert's  father  ;  and  although  in  Queen  Victoria's 
life  there  was  a  fair  allowance  of  sunshine,  still, 
as  Ecclesiastes  said,  "the  clouds  return  after  the 
rain  "  ;  and,  in  a  family  where  cousinship  is  recog- 
nized to  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  the 
11  shade  "  of  mourning  must  constantly  recur.  The 
late  Duke  of  Beaufort,  head  of  the  most  numerous 
family  in  the  Peerage,  always  wore  a  black  band 


42  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

round  his  white  hat,  because,  as  he  said,  one  of 
his  cousins  was  always  dead  and  he  would  not  be 
wanting  in  respect  for  the  deceased  ;  and,  similarly, 
a  Maid  of  Honour  once  said  to  me,  "  I  never  see 
the  Queen's  jewels,  because  she  is  almost  always 
in  mourning  for  some  German  prince  or  prin- 
cess, and  then  she  only  wears  black  ornaments." 
Of  course,  in  a  case  where  there  was  this  natu- 
ral predisposition  to  mournful  observance,  the 
supreme  loss  of  a  husband  meant  a  final  renun- 
ciation of  the  world  and  its  gaieties.  I  suppose 
it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  from  her  bereave- 
ment in  1 86 1  to  her  death  in  1901  Queen  Victoria 
lived  in  unbroken  communion  with  the  unseen 
but  unforgotten.  The  necessary  business  of  the 
State  was  not,  even  for  a  week,  laid  aside  ;  but 
pomps  and  ceremonies  and  public  appearances 
are  profoundly  distasteful  to  shattered  nerves  and 
broken  hearts.  Yielding  to  the  urgent  advice  of 
her  Ministers,  Queen  Victoria  emerged  from  four 
years'  seclusion  to  open  the  new  Parliament  in 
1866  ;  and  her  reward  was  reaped  in  the  following 
December,  when  a  peculiarly  rancorous  politician 
rebuked  her  at  a  great  meeting  of  reformers  in  St. 
James's  Hall  for  a  lack  of  popular  sympathies.  It 
was  then  that,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  John 
Bright,  who  himself  had  known  so  well  what 
bereavement  meant,  uttered  his  chivalrous  defence 
of  the  absent  and  lonely  Sovereign  : — 

"  I  am  not  accustomed  to  stand  up  in  defence 


MOURNING  43 

of  those  who  are  possessors  of  crowns.  But  I 
could  not  sit  and  hear  that  observation  without  a 
sensation  of  wonder  and  of  pain.  I  think  there 
has  been,  by  many  persons,  a  great  injustice  done 
to  the  Queen  in  reference  to  her  desolate  and 
widowed  position.  And  I  venture  to  say  this — 
that  a  woman,  be  she  the  Queen  of  a  great  realm 
or  be  she  the  wife  of  one  of  your  labouring  men, 
who  can  keep  alive  in  her  heart  a  great  sorrow  for 
the  lost  object  of  her  life  and  affection,  is  not  at 
all  likely  to  be  wanting  in  a  great  and  generous 
sympathy  with  you." 

Admirable  and  reverend  as  was  this  abiding 
sorrow,  contemporary  observers  felt  that  its  out- 
ward manifestations  were  not  always  harmonious. 
The  Mausoleum  at  Frogmore  is  not  a  "  poem  in 
stone,"  and  the  Monument  of  Gilt  opposite  the 
Albert  Hall  has  supplied  the  frivolous  with  an 
appropriate  pun.  Landseer,  who,  when  once  he 
forsook  his  stags  and  deerhounds,  was  surely  the 
most  debased  painter  of  a  hideous  age,  attained 
his  worst  in  a  picture  of  the  Slopes  at  Windsor 
circa  1862.  Under  an  inky  sky,  in  the  forefront  of 
a  sunless  landscape,  stands  a  black  pony,  and  on 
its  back  is  a  lady  dressed  in  the  deepest  weeds, 
with  a  black  riding-skirt  and  a  black  bonnet.  A 
retainer  in  subfusc  kilt  holds  the  pony's  head,  a 
dingy  terrier  looks  on  with  melancholy  eyes,  and,  in 
the  distant  background,  two  darkly-clad  princesses 
shiver  on  a  garden-seat.     The  only  spot  of  colour 


44  SEEING    AND    HEARING 


in  the  scene  is  a  red  despatch-box,  and  the  whole 
forms  the  highest  tribute  of  English  art  to  a 
national  disaster  and  a  Queenly  sorrow. 

Black,  and  intensely  black,  were  all  the  trap- 
pings of  courtly  woe — black  crape,  black  gloves, 
black  feathers,  black  jewellery.  The  State-robes 
were  worn  no  longer  ;  the  State-coach  stood  un- 
used in  the  coach-house.  The  footmen  wore  black 
bands  round  their  arms.  It  was  only  by  slow 
degrees,  and  on  occasions  of  high  and  rare  solem- 
nity, that  white  lace  and  modest  plumes  and 
diamonds  and  decorations  were  permitted  to  en- 
liven the  firmament  of  courtly  woe.  But  we  of 
the  twentieth  century  live  in  an  age  of  aesthetic 
revival,  and,  though  perhaps  we  do  not  mourn 
so  heartily,  we  certainly  mourn  more  prettily. 
One  lady  at  least  there  is  who  knows  how  to  com- 
bine the  sincerity  of  sorrow  with  its  becoming 
manifestation  ;  and  Queen  Alexandra  in  mourning 
garb  is  as  delightful  a  vision  as  was  Queen  Alexandra 
in  her  clothing  of  wrought  gold,  when  she  knelt 
before  the  altar  of  Westminster  Abbey  and  bowed 
her  head  to  receive  her  diamond  crown. 

Queen  Victoria's  devotion  to  the  memory  of 
those  whom  she  had  lost  had  one  definite  con- 
sequence which  probably  she  little  contemplated. 
The  annual  service,  conducted  in  the  Royal  Mau- 
soleum at  Frogmore  on  the  anniversary  of  the 
Prince  Consort's  death,  accustomed  English  people 
to    the    idea,    which   since   the    Reformation    had 


MOURNING  45 

become  strangely  unfamiliar,  of  devotional  com- 
memoration of  the  Departed.  To  the  Queen's 
religious  instincts,  deeply  tinged  as  they  had  been 
by  Prince  Albert's  Lutheranism,  such  commemo- 
rations were  entirely  natural  ;  for  German  Protes- 
tantism has  always  cherished  a  much  livelier  sense 
of  the  relation  between  the  living  and  the  de- 
parted than  was  realized  by  English  Puritanism. 
The  example  set  in  high  quarters  quickly  spread. 
Memorial  Services  became  an  established  form 
of  English  mourning.  Beginning  with  simple 
prayers  and  hymns,  they  gradually  developed  into 
Memorial  Eucharists.  The  splendid,  wailing 
music  of  the  Dies  Irce  was  felt  to  be  the  Christian 
echo  of  the  Domine,  Refugium ;  and  the  common 
instinct  of  mourning  humanity  found  its  appro- 
priate expression  when,  over  the  coffin  of  Prince 
Henry  of  Battenberg,  the  choir  of  St.  George's 
Chapel  sang  the  Russian  hymn  of  supplication, 
"  Give  rest,  O  Christ,  to  Thy  servant  with  Thy 
Saints." 


VII 

WILLS 

If  there  is  any  one  still  left  who  knows  his 
"  Christian  Year,"  he  will  remember  that  Keble  ex- 
tolled "a  sober  standard  of  feeling"  as  a  special 
virtue  of  the  English  Prayer-book.  I  have  always 
thought  that  this  "  sober  standard  "  is  peculiarly 
well  exemplified  by  the  rubric  about  Will-making 
in  the  Order  for  the  Visitation  of  the  Sick  :  "  If  the 
sick  person  hath  not  before  disposed  of  his  goods, 
let  him  then  be  admonished  to  make  his  Will  and 
to  declare  his  Debts,  what  he  oweth  and  what  is 
owing  unto  him,  for  the  better  discharging  of  his 
conscience  and  the  quietness  of  his  Executors.  But 
men  should  often  be  put  in  remembrance  to  take 
order  for  the  settling  of  their  temporal  estates  whilst 
they  are  in  health."  There  is  something  in  these 
directions  which  is  curiously  English  and  common- 
place and  unrhapsodical,  and  therefore  exactly 
congruous  with  the  temper  of  a  people  who  have 
never  set  a  high  value  on  unpractical  religions. 
To  this  general  duty  of  Will-making  there  may,  of 
course,  be  exceptions.  Thus  Dr.  Pusey  in  his  old 
age,  when  his  family  was  reduced  to  one  and  he 


WILLS  47 

had  no  possessions  left  except  his  books,  said  : 
"  In  a  case  like  mine,  the  Law  is  the  best  will- 
maker."  A  pietistic  admirer,  who  had  caught  the 
words  imperfectly,  in  relating  them  substituted 
"  Lord  "  for  "  Law"  ;  but  the  substitution  did  not 
really  affect  the  sense.  In  cases  where  no  great 
interests  are  involved  and  the  requirements  of 
justice  are  not  altogether  clear,  we  can  wisely 
leave  the  eventual  fate  of  our  possessions  to  "  God's 
scheme  for  governing  the  Universe,  by  men  mis- 
called Chance." 

There  is,  I  believe,  a  certain  school  of  economic 
reformers  who  would  wholly  abolish  the  pre- 
rogative of  Will-making,  and  would  decree  that 
whatever  a  man  leaves  behind  him  should  pass 
automatically  to  his  children,  or,  failing  them,  to 
the  State.  On  the  social  and  fiscal  results  of  such 
a  system  I  forbear  to  speculate  ;  but,  as  a  sincere 
friend  to  Literature  in  all  its  branches,  I  would 
ask,  if  that  were  law,  what  would  become  of  the 
Novelists  and  the  Playwrights  ?  The  law  of  Stage- 
land  has  been  codified  for  us  by  the  laborious  care 
of  Mr.  Jerome  K.  Jerome,  and  among  its  best- 
established  principles  seem  to  be  these  :  If  a  man 
dies  without  leaving  a  will,  then  all  his  property 
goes  to  the  nearest  villain  ;  but,  if  a  man  dies  and 
leaves  a  will,  then  all  his  property  goes  to  whoever 
can  get  possession  of  that  will.  Here  are  the  raw 
materials  of  dramatic  litigation  enough  to  hold  the 
Stage  for  a  century  ;  and  ill  would  it  fare  with  the 


48  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

embarrassed  playwright  if  a  mechanical  process  of 
law  were  substituted  for  the  strange  possibilities  of 
Will-making,  with  its  startling  caprices,  its  incal- 
culable miscarriages,  and  its  eventual  triumph  of 
injured  innocence.  Then  again,  as  to  Fiction. 
Foul  fall  the  day  when  our  fiction-writers  shall  be 
unable  to  traffic  any  longer  in  testamentary  mysti- 
fication. How  would  their  predecessors  have  fared 
if  they  had  laboured  under  such  a  disability  ?  I 
am  by  nature  too  cautious  to  "  intromit  with  "  the 
mysteries  of  Scotch  law,  and  in  the  romances  of 
the  beloved  Sir  Walter  the  complications  of  Entail 
and  of  Will-making  are  curiously  intertwined. 
Certainly  it  was  under  the  provisions  of  an  entail 
that  Harry  Bertram  recovered  the  estates  of  Ellan- 
gowan,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  was  an 
Entail  which  prompted  the  Countess  of  Glenallan 
to  her  hideous  crime  ;  but  it  was  by  will  that  Miss 
Margaret  Bertram  devised  the  lands  of  Singleside, 
and  it  was  under  old  Sir  Hildebrand's  will  that 
Francis  Osbaldistone  succeeded  to  Osbaldistone 
Hall. 

Even  greater  are  the  obligations  of  our  English 
novelists  to  the  testamentary  law.  Miss  Edge- 
worth  made  admirable  use  of  it  in  "  Almeria." 
Had  Englishmen  no  power  of  making  wills,  the 
"  wicked  Lord  Hertford  "  could  not  have  executed 
the  notorious  instrument  which  gave  such  un- 
bounded delight  to  the  scandalmongers  of  1842- 
1843,  and  then  Lord  Beaconsfield  could  not  have 


WILLS  49 

drawn  his  Hogarth-like  picture  of  the  reading  of 
Lord  Monmouth's  will  in  "  Coningsby."  Thacke- 
ray did  not  traffic  very  much  in  wills,  though,  to 
be  sure,  Jos  Sedley  left  £1000  to  Becky  Sharp, 
and  the  opportune  discovery  of  Lord  Ringwood's 
will  in  the  pocket  of  his  travelling-carriage  simpli- 
fied Philip's  career.  The  insolvent  swindler  Dr. 
Firmin,  who  had  robbed  his  son  and  absconded 
to  America,  left  his  will  "  in  the  tortoiseshell  secre- 
taire in  the  consulting-room,  under  the  picture  of 
Abraham  offering  up  Isaac."  Dickens  was  a  great 
Will-maker.  We  know  that  if  Dick  Swiveller  had 
been  a  steadier  youth  he  would  have  inherited 
more  than  ^150  a  year  from  his  aunt  Rebecca. 
That  loyal-hearted  lover  Mr.  Barkis,  in  spite  of 
all  rebuffs,  made  the  obdurate  Peggotty  his  resi- 
duary legatee.  Mr.  Finching  left  "  a  beautiful 
will,"  and  Madeline  Bray  was  the  subject  of  a 
very  complicated  one.  Mr.  Dorrit's  unexpected 
fortune  accrued  to  him,  I  think,  as  Heir-at-law  ; 
but  the  litigation  in  Jarndyce  v.  Jarndyce  arose, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  out  of  a  disputed  will ; 
and  the  Thellusson  Will  Case,  on  which  Dickens 
relied,  in  later  years  supplied  Henry  Kingsley 
with  the  plot  of  "  Reginald  Hetherege."  Per- 
haps Dickens's  best  piece  of  Will-making  is  given 
in  the  case  of  Mr.  Spenlow,  who,  being  a  prac- 
titioner in  Doctors'  Commons,  spoke  about  his 
own  will  with  "  a  serenity,  a  tranquillity,  a 
calm    sunset    air "     which    quite     affected    David 

D 


50  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Copperfield  ;  and  then  shattered  all  poor  David's 
hopes  by  dying  intestate. 

Anthony  Trollope  made  good  use  of  a  Will 
and  a  Codicil  in  the  plot  of  "Orley  Farm." 
George  Eliot,  whose  disagreeable  characters  always 
seem  a  good  deal  nearer  life  than  her  heroes 
and  heroines,  made  Mr.  Casaubon  behave  very 
characteristically  in  the  odious  will  by  which  he 
tried  to  prevent  Dorothea  from  marrying  Will 
Ladislaw  ;  and  her  picture  of  the  disappoint- 
ment which  fell  upon  the  company  when  Peter 
Featherstone's  will  was  read  is  perhaps  her  best 
achievement  in  the  way  of  humour.  "  Nobody 
present  had  a  farthing  ;  but  Mr.  Trumbull  had 
the  gold-headed  cane,"  which,  considered  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  his  professional  services  to 
the  deceased,  he  was  ungrateful  enough  to  call 
"  farcical." 

The  Law  of  Settlement  and  Entail  is  no  part  of 
our  present  study  ;  but  it  may  be  remarked  in 
passing  that  the  legal  Opinion  on  the  Base  Fee  by 
which  Harold  Transome  in  "  Felix  Holt  "  held  the 
Transome  Estates  was  written,  at  George  Eliot's 
request,  by  a  young  Chancery  Barrister,  who 
still  survives,  a  brilliant  figure  in  the  world  of 
Letters. 

This  is  enough,  and  perhaps  more  than  enough, 
about  Wills  in  fiction  ;  but  Wills  in  real  life  are 
fully  as  interesting.  The  late  Sir  Charles  Butt, 
who   presided    over   the    Divorce    Court    and   the 


WILLS  51 

Probate  Court,  once  told  me  that,  though  the 
aspect  of  human  nature  which  is  exhibited  in 
Divorce  is  not  ideally  beautiful,  it  is  far  less  re- 
pulsive than  that  which  is  disclosed  by  Probate. 
None  of  the  stories  which  one  has  read  about 
forged  wills,  forced  wills,  wills  made  under  pres- 
sure, wills  made  under  misrepresentation,  are  too 
strange  to  be  true.  A  century  ago  the  daughter 
of  a  great  landowner  in  the  North  of  England 
succeeded  to  his  wealth  under  circumstances 
which,  to  put  it  mildly,  caused  surprise.  In  later 
life  she  had  a  public  quarrel  with  a  high-born 
but  intemperate  dame,  who  concluded  the  col- 
loquy by  observing,  with  mordant  emphasis, 
11  Well,  at  any  rate  I  didn't  hold  my  dying 
father's  hand  to  make  him  sign  a  will  he  never 
saw,  and  then  murder  the  Butler  to  prevent  his 
telling."  "  Ouida,"  or  Miss  Braddon,  or  some 
other  novelist  of  High  Life  might,  I  think,  make 
something  of  this  scene. 

Spiteful  Wills — wills  which,  by  rehearsing  and 
revoking  previous  bequests,  mortify  the  survivors 
when  the  testator  is  no  longer  in  a  position  to  do 
so  viva  voce — form  a  very  curious  branch  of  the 
subject.  Lord  Kew  was  a  very  wealthy  peer  of 
strict  principles  and  peculiarly  acrid  temper,  and, 
having  no  wife  or  children  to  annoy,  he  "took  it 
out,"  as  the  saying  is,  of  his  brothers,  nephews, 
and  other  expectant  kinsfolk.  One  gem  from  his 
collection  I  recall,  in  some  such  words  as  these : 


52  SEEING   AND    HEARING 

"  By  a  previous  will  I  had  left  .£50,000  to  my 
brother  John  ;  but,  as  he  has  sent  his  son  to  Oxford 
instead  of  Cambridge,  contrary  to  my  expressed 
wish,  I  reduce  the  legacy  to  .£500."  May  the 
earth  lie  light  on  that  benevolent  old  despot ! 
Eccentricities  of  bequest,  again,  might  make  a 
pleasant  chapter.  The  present  writer,  though  not 
yet  in  tottering  age,  can  recall  an  annuitant  whose 
claim  to  .£20  a  year  was  founded  (in  part)  on  the 
skill  with  which  he  had  tied  his  master's  pigtail, 
and  that  master  died  in  1830.  The  proverbial 
longevity  of  annuitants  was  illustrated  in  the  case 
of  a  grey  parrot,  for  whose  maintenance  his  de- 
parted mistress  left  ^ioa  year.  The  bird  was  not 
very  young  when  the  annuity  began  to  accrue  ; 
and,  as  years  went  on  and  friends  dropped  off,  he 
began  to  feel  the  loneliness  of  his  lot.  With  a 
tenderness  of  heart  which  did  them  infinite  credit, 
the  good  couple  to  whose  care  the  bird  had 
been  left  imported  a  companion  exactly  like 
himself  to  cheer  his  solitude.  Before  long  one 
of  the  parrots  died,  and  the  mourners  re- 
marked that  these  younger  birds  had  not  half 
the  constitution  of  the  older  generation.  So,  as 
long  as  they  lived,  the  parrot  lived,  and  the 
pension  lived  also. 

Let  my  closing  word  on  Wills  bear  the  authority 
of  a  great  name.  To  a  retailer  of  news  who 
informed   him  that    Lord   Omnium,  recently    de- 


WILLS  53 

ceased,  had  left  a  large  sum  of  money  to 
charities,  Mr.  Gladstone  replied  with  char- 
acteristic emphasis  :  "  Thank  him  for  nothing  ! 
He  was  obliged  to  leave  it.  He  couldn't  carry 
it  with  him." 


VIII 

PENSIONS 

"  There  is  no  living  in  this  country  under  twenty 
thousand  a  year — not  that  that  suffices,  but  it  en- 
titles one  to  ask  a  pension  for  two  or  three  lives." 
This  was  the  verdict  of  Horace  Walpole,  who,  as 
Sir  George  Trevelyan  antithetically  says,  "  lived  in 
the  country  and  on  the  country  during  more  than 
half  a  century,  doing  for  the  country  less  than 
half  a  day's  work  in  half  a  year."  Talleyrand 
said  that  no  one  could  conceive  how  enjoyable  a 
thing  existence  was  capable  of  being  who  had  not 
belonged  to  the  Ancienne  Noblesse  of  France  before 
the  Revolution  ;  but  really  the  younger  son  of  an 
important  Minister,  General,  Courtier,  or  Prelate 
under  our  English  Georges  had  a  good  deal  to  be 
thankful  for.  It  is  pleasant  to  note  the  innocent 
candour  with  which,  in  Walpole's  manly  declara- 
tion, one  enormity  is  made  to  justify  another.  A 
father  who  held  great  office  in  Church  or  State  or 
Law  gave,  as  a  matter  of  course,  all  his  most  desir- 
able preferments  to  his  sons.  These  preferments 
enabled  the  sons  to  live  in  opulence  at  the  public 
charge,  their  duties  being  performed   by  deputy. 

54 


PENSIONS  55 

The  Clerk  of  the  Rolls  and  the  Clerk  of  the 
Hanaper  had  no  personal  contact  with  the  mys- 
terious articles  to  which  they  are  attached.  The 
Clerk  of  the  Irons,  the  Surveyor  of  the  Meltings, 
and  the  Accountant  of  Slops  lived  far  remote 
from  such  "  low-thoughted  cares."  The  writer  of 
this  book  deduces  his  insignificant  being  from  a 
gentleman  who  divided  with  a  brother  the  lucra- 
tive sinecure  of  Scavenger  of  Dublin,  though 
neither  ever  set  foot  in  that  fragrant  city.  A 
nephew  of  Lord-Chancellor  Thurlow  (who  sur- 
vived till  1874)  drew  pensions  for  abolished  offices 
to  the  amount  of  .£11,000  a  year;  and  a  son  of 
Archbishop  Moore  was  Principal  Registrar  of  the 
Prerogative  Court  of  Canterbury  from  his  boy- 
hood till  the  abolition  of  his  Court  in  1858,  when 
he  was  pensioned  off  with  .£10,000  a  year. 

When  the  sands  of  life  were  running  in  the 
glass,  it  was  customary  for  a  filial  placeman  to 
obtain  further  pensions  for  his  sons  and  daughters, 
on  the  obvious  plea  that  it  was  cruel  to  cast  young 
men  and  women,  who  had  been  reared  in  comfort 
on  the  mercies  of  a  rough  world.  Thus  the 
golden  chain  of  Royal  bounty  held  at  least  three 
lives  together.  The  grandfather  was  First  Lord 
of  the  Treasury  or  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
or  Paymaster-General,  and  into  his  personal  profits 
it  would  be  invidious,  even  indecent,  to  enquire. 
He  might  make  his  eldest  son,  while  still  a  boy  at 
Eton,  Clerk  of  the  Estreats,  and  his  second,  before 


56  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

he  took  his  degree  at  Cambridge,  Usher  of  the 
Exchequer.  Thus  Lord-Chancellor  Erskine  made 
his  son  Secretary  of  Presentations  when  he  was 
eighteen,  and  Charles  Greville  was  appointed 
Secretary  of  Jamaica  (where  he  never  set  his  foot) 
before  he  was  twenty.  And  then  when,  after  fifty 
or  sixty  years  of  blameless  enjoyment,  the  amiable 
sinecurist  was  nearing  his  last  quarter-day,  a 
benevolent  Treasury  intervened  to  save  his  maiden 
daughters  or  orphan  nieces  from  pecuniary  em- 
barrassment. It  was  of  such  "  near  and  dear 
relations "  of  a  public  man  that  Sydney  Smith 
affirmed  that  their  "  eating,  drinking,  washing, 
and  clothing  cost  every  man  in  the  United  King- 
dom twopence  or  threepence  a  year  "  ;  and,  to  the 
critics  who  deprecated  this  commercial  way  of 
regarding  the  situation,  he  replied,  with  character- 
istic vigour  :  "  I  have  no  idea  that  the  Sophias  and 
Carolines  of  any  man  breathing  are  to  eat  national 
veal,  to  drink  public  tea,  to  wear  Treasury  ribands, 
and  then  that  we  are  to  be  told  that  it  is  coarse 
to  animadvert  upon  this  pitiful  and  eleemosynary 
splendour.  If  this  is  right,  why  not  mention  it  ? 
If  it  is  wrong,  why  should  not  he  who  enjoys  the 
ease  of  supporting  his  sisters  in  this  manner  bear 
the  shame  of  it  ?  "  In  thus  writing  of  the  Pension 
List  as  it  stood  in  1807,  the  admirable  Sydney  was 
at  once  the  successor  of  Burke  and  the  forerunner 
of  Lord  Grey.  In  1780  Burke  had  addressed  all 
the  resources  of  his  genius  to  the  task  of  restoring 


PENSIONS  57 

the  independence  of  Parliament  by  economical 
reform.  It  was,  as  Mr.  Morley  says,  the  number 
of  sinecure  places  and  unpublished  pensions  which 
"  furnished  the  Minister  with  an  irresistible  lever." 
Burke  found  that  "  in  sweeping  away  those  facti- 
tious places  and  secret  pensions  he  would  be 
robbing  the  Court  of  its  chief  implements  of  cor- 
ruption and  protecting  the  representative  against 
his  chief  motive  in  selling  his  country."  His 
power  of  oratory  was  reinforced  by  a  minute 
knowledge  of  all  the  shady  and  shabby  abuses,  all 
the  manifold  and  complicated  corruptions,  which 
had  accumulated  under  the  protection  of  the  Royal 
name.  The  reformer's  triumph  was  signal  and 
complete.  Vast  numbers  of  sinecures  were  swept 
away,  but  some  remained.  The  Pension  List 
was  closely  curtailed,  but  pensions  were  still  con- 
ferred. No  public  servant  ever  more  richly  earned 
a  provision  for  his  old  age  and  decrepitude  than 
Burke  himself  ;  but  when,  broken  by  years  and 
sorrows,  he  accepted  a  pension  from  the  Crown, 
a  Whig  Duke  of  fabulous  wealth,  just  thirty  years 
old,  had  the  temerity  to  charge  him  with  a  dis- 
creditable departure  from  his  former  principles  of 
economic  reform.  The  Duke  was  a  booby  :  but 
his  foolhardiness  enriched  English  literature  with 
'  A  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord  on  the  Attacks  made 
on  Mr.  Burke  and  his  Pension."  To  read  that 
Letter,  even  after  the  lapse  of  no  years,  is  to 
realize   that,    in    spite    of    all    corruption    and    all 


58  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

abuse,  pecuniary  rewards  for  political  service  need 
not  be  dishonourable  or  unreasonable. 

But  corruption  and  abuse  there  were,  and 
in  sufficient  quantities  to  justify  all  the  bitter 
fun  which  "  Peter  Plymley "  poured  upon  the 
Cannings,  the  Jenkinsons,  and  the  Percevals.  The 
reform  of  the  Pension  List  became  a  cardinal 
object  of  reforming  Radicals  ;  and  politicians  like 
Joseph  Hume,  publicists  like  Albany  Fonblanque, 
pursued  it  with  incessant  perseverance, 

"Till  Grey  went  forth  in  'Thirty-two  to  storm  Corrup- 
tion's hold." 

In  1834  the  first  Reformed  Parliament  overhauled 
the  whole  system  and  brought  some  curious  trans- 
actions into  the  light  of  day.  Whereas  up  to  that 
time  the  Pension  List  amounted  to  .£145,000  a 
year,    it  was  now  reduced  to   £75,000  ;    and   its 


benefits  were  restricted  to  li  servants  of  the  Crown 
and  public,  and  to  those  who  by  their  useful 
discoveries  in  science  or  attainments  in  literature 
and  the  arts  had  merited  the  gracious  considera- 
tion of  their  Sovereign  and  the  gratitude  of  their 
country."  Vested  interests  were,  of  course,  re- 
spected ;  for  had  we  not  even  compensated  the 
slaveholders  ?  Two  years  ago  one  of  these  bene- 
ficiaries survived  in  a  serene  old  age,  and,  for  all 
I  know,  there  may  be  others  still  spared  to  us,  for, 
as  Mr.  G.  A.  Sala  truly  remarked,  it  never  is  safe 
to  say  that  any  one  is  dead,  for  if  you  do  he  is 


PENSIONS  59 

sure  to  write  from  the  country  and  say  he  is  only 
ninety-seven  and  never  was  better. 

A  typical  representative  of  the  unreformed 
system  was  John  Wilson  Croker  (i 780-1 857), 
whose  literary  efforts  Macaulay  trounced,  and 
whose  political  utterances  were  thus  described 
by  Lord  Beaconsfield  : — 

"  There  never  was  a  fellow  for  giving  a  good 
hearty  kick  to  the  people  like  Rigby.  Himself 
sprung  from  the  dregs  of  the  populace,  this  was 
disinterested.  What  could  be  more  patriotic  and 
magnanimous  than  his  jeremiads  over  the  fall  of 
the  Montmorencis  and  the  Crillions,  or  the  possible 
catastrophe  of  the  Percys  and  the  Seymours  ? 
The  truth  of  all  this  hullabaloo  was  that  Rigby 
had  a  sly  pension  which,  by  an  inevitable  associa- 
tion of  ideas,  he  always  connected  with  the  main- 
tenance of  an  aristocracy.  All  his  rigmarole 
dissertations  on  the  French  Revolution  were  im- 
pelled by  this  secret  influence  ;  and,  when  he 
moaned  like  a  mandrake  over  Nottingham  Castle 
in  flames,  the  rogue  had  an  eye  all  the  while  to 
quarter-day." 

It  was  an  evil  day  for  those  who  love  to  grow 
rich  upon  the  public  money  when  Mr.  Gladstone 
became  the  controller  of  the  National  Purse.  One 
of  his  first  acts  was  to  revise  the  system  of  political 
pensions,  which  by  an  Act  of  1869  was  reconsti- 
tuted as  it  stands  to-day.  There  are  now  three 
classes  of  persons  entitled  to  pensions  for  services 


60  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

rendered  in  political  office  ;  and  the  scale  is 
arranged  on  that  curious  principle  which  also 
regulates  the  "  tips  "  to  servants  in  a  private  house 
— that  the  larger  your  wage  is,  the  larger  your 
gratuity  shall  be.  Thus  a  Minister  who  has  drawn 
^5000  a  year  is  entitled  after  four  years'  service 
to  a  pension  of  ^2000  a  year  ;  he  who  has  drawn 
.£3000  a  year  for  six  years  is  entitled  to  ^1200  a 
year  ;  while  he  who  has  laboured  for  ten  years 
for  the  modest  remuneration  of  .£1000  a  year 
must  be  content  with  a  pittance  of  £800  a  year. 
Qui  habet,  dabitur  ei ;  but  with  this  restriction — that 
only  four  pensions  of  any  one  class  can  run  con- 
currently. 

Politicians  who  had  been  brought  up  in  the 
"  spacious  days "  and  generous  methods  of  the 
older  dispensation  were  by  no  means  enamoured 
of  what  they  used  to  call  "  Gladstone's  cheese- 
paring economies."  Sir  William  Gregory  used  to 
relate  how,  when,  as  a  child,  he  asked  Lord  Mel- 
bourne for  a  fine  red  stick  of  official  sealing-wax, 
that  genial  Minister  thrust  it  into  his  hand,  together 
with  a  bundle  of  quill  pens,  saying,  "  You  can't 
begin  too  early.  All  these  things  belong  to  the 
public,  and  your  business  in  life  must  be  to  get 
out  of  the  public  all  you  can."  An  eminent 
statesman,  trained  in  these  traditions,  had  drawn 
from  very  early  days  a  pension  for  an  abolished 
office  in  Chancery.  In  due  course  he  became  a 
Cabinet  Minister,  and,  when  he  fell  from  that  high 


PENSIONS  61 

estate,  he  duly  pocketed  his  .£2000  a  year.  Later 
he  came  into  a  very  large  income,  but  this  he 
obligingly  saved  for  his  nephews  and  nieces,  living 
meanwhile  on  his  twofold  pension. 

I  will  conclude  with  a  pleasanter  anecdote. 
Until  half-way  through  the  last  century  it  was 
customary  to  give  a  Speaker  on  retiring  from  the 
House  of  Commons  a  pension  of  ^2000  a  year  for 
two  lives.  It  is  related  that  in  1857  Mr.  Speaker 
Shaw-Lefevre,  on  his  elevation  to  the  peerage  as 
Lord  Eversley,  said  that  he  could  not  endure  the 
thought  of  imposing  a  burden  on  posterity,  and 
would  therefore  take  ^4000  a  year  for  his  own  life 
instead  of  ^2000  a  year  for  two.  This  public- 
spirited  action  was  highly  commended,  and,  as  he 
lived  till  1888,  virtue  was,  as  it  ought  always  to 
be,  its  own  reward. 


IX 

THE    SEASON    AS    IT    WAS 

The  subject  is  worthy  to  be  celebrated  both  in  verse 
and  in  prose.  Exactly  sixty  years  ago  Bulwer- 
Lytton,  in  his  anonymous  satire  "  The  New  Timon," 
thus  described  the  nocturnal  aspect  of  the  West 
End  in  that  choice  period  of  the  year  which  to  us 
Londoners  is  pre-eminently  "The  Season  "  : — 

"  O'er  Royal  London,  in  luxuriant  May, 
While  lamps  yet  twinkle,  dawning  creeps  the  day. 
Home  from  the  hell  the  pale-eyed  gamester  steals  ; 
Home  from  the  ball  flash  jaded  Beauty's  wheels ; 
From  fields  suburban  rolls  the  early  cart ; 
So  rests  the  Revel — so  awakes  the  Mart." 

Twenty-four  years  later  Lord  Beaconsfield,  in 
"  Lothair,"  gave  a  vivid  sketch  of  the  same  scenes 
as  beheld  by  daylight : — 

"  Town  was  beginning  to  blaze.  Broughams 
whirled  and  bright  barouches  glanced,  troops  of 
social  cavalry  cantered  and  caracolled  in  morning 
rides,  and  the  bells  of  prancing  ponies,  lashed  by 
delicate  hands,  gingled  in  the  laughing  air.     There 

were  stoppages  in  Bond  Street — which  seems  to 

62 


THE    SEASON    AS    IT    WAS  63 

cap  the  climax  of  civilization,  after  crowded  clubs 
and  swarming  parks." 

It  is  curious  that  of  the  two  descriptions  the 
earlier  needs  much  less  revision  than  the  later. 
Lamps  still  "  twinkle  "  (though,  to  be  sure,  they 
are  electric,  whereas  when  Bulwer-Lytton  wrote 
gas  had  barely  ousted  oil  from  its  last  fastness  in 
Grosvenor  Square).  "  Hells,"  though  more  euphe- 
mistically named,  still  invite  the  domiciliary  visits 
of  our  much-aspersed  police.  "  Beauty  "  dances 
even  more  vigorously  than  in  1846,  for  Waltzes 
and  Kitchen-Lancers  and  Washington  Posts  have 
superseded  the  decorous  quadrilles  which  our 
mothers  loved.  And  still  the  market-gardens  of 
Acton  and  Ealing  and  Hounslow  send  their  "  tower- 
ing squadrons  "  of  waggons  laden  heavens-high  with 
the  fruits  and  vegetables  for  to-morrow's  luncheon. 
In  this  merry  month  of  May  1906  an  observer, 
standing  at  Hyde  Park  Corner  "  when  the  night 
and  morning  meet,"  sees  London  substantially  as 
Bulwer-Lytton  saw  it. 

But,  when  we  turn  to  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
description,  the  changes  wrought  by  six-and-thirty 
years  are  curiously  marked.  "  Bright  barouches 
glanced."  In  the  present  day  a  Barouche,  the 
handsomest  and  gracefullest  of  all  open  carriages, 
is  as  rare  as  an  Auk's  Egg  or  an  original  Folio  of 
Shakespeare.  Only  two  or  three  survive.  One, 
richly  dight  in  royal  crimson,  bears  the  Qneen, 
beautiful  as  Cleopatra  in  her  barge.      In  another, 


64  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

almost  imperially  purple,  Lady  Londonderry  sits 
enthroned  ;  a  third,  palely  blue  as  the  forget-me- 
not,  carries  Lady  Carysfort  ;  but  soon  the  tale 
of  barouches  ends.  Victorias  and  landaus  and 
"  Clarences "  and  "  Sociables "  make  the  com- 
mon throng  of  carriages,  and  their  serried  ranks 
give  way  to  the  impetuous  onrush  of  the  noxious 
Motor  or  the  milder  impact  of  the  Electric 
Brougham. 

"  Troops  of  social  cavalry "  were,  when  Lord 
Beaconsfield  wrote  "  Lothair,"  the  characteristic 
glories  of  Rotten  Row  ;  but  horses  and  horseman- 
ship alike  have  waned.  Men  take  their  consti- 
tutional canter  in  costumes  anciently  confined  to 
rat-catching,  and  the  general  aspect  of  Rotten 
Row  suggests  the  idea  of  Mounted  Infantry 
rather  than  of  "  Cavalry."  Alongside  the  ride 
forty  years  ago  ladies  drove  their  pony-phaetons 
— a  pretty  practice  and  a  pretty  carriage  ;  but 
both  have  utterly  disappeared,  and  the  only 
bells  that  "  gingle  in  the  laughing  air "  are 
the  warning  signals  of  the  Petrol  Fiend,  as, 
bent  on  destruction,  he  swoops  down  from 
Marble  Arch  to  Piccadilly.  Does  a  captious 
critic  gaze  enquiringly  on  the  unfamiliar  verb 
to  "  gingle "  ?  It  was  thus  that  Lord  Beacons- 
field  wrote  it  in  "  Lothair "  ;  even  as  in  the 
same  high  romance  he  described  a  lady  with 
a  rich  bunch  of  "  Stephanopolis "  in  her  hand. 
It  is  not  for  the  ephemeral  scribbler   to   correct 


THE    SEASON    AS    IT    WAS  65 

the  orthography  of  the  immortal  dead.  As  to 
"  stoppages  in  Bond  Street,"  they  were  isolated 
and  noteworthy  incidents  in  1870;  in  1906,  thanks 
to  the  admission  of  omnibuses  into  the  narrow 
thoroughfare,  they  are  occurrences  as  regular  as 
the  postman's  knock  or  the  policeman's  mailed 
tread. 

We  have  seen  the  aspects  in  which  the  London 
Season  presented  itself  to  two  great  men  of  yore. 
Let  me  now  descend  to  a  more  personal  level. 
We  will  imagine  ourselves  transported  back  to  the 
year  1880,  and  to  the  month  of  May.  A  young 
gentleman — some  five-and-twenty  summers,  as 
Mr.  G.  P.  R.  James  would  have  said,  have  passed 
over  his  fair  head — is  standing  near  the  steps  of 
St.  George's  Hospital  between  the  hours  of  eleven 
and  midnight.  He  is  smartly  dressed  in  evening 
clothes,  with  a  white  waistcoat,  a  gardenia  in  his 
button-hole,  and  a  silver-crutched  stick  in  his 
hand.  He  is  smoking  a  cigarette  and  pondering 
the  question  where  he  shall  spend  his  evening,  or, 
more  strictly,  the  early  hours  of  next  day.  He  is 
in  a  state  of  serene  contentment  with  himself  and 
the  world,  for  he  has  just  eaten  an  excellent  dinner, 
where  plovers'  eggs  and  asparagus  have  reminded 
him  that  the  Season  has  really  begun.  To  the 
pleasure-seeking  Londoner  these  symptoms  of  re- 
turning summer  mean  more,  far  more,  than  the 
dogrose  in  the  hedgerow  or  the  first  note  of  the 
nightingale    in    the  copse.     Since   dinner   he   has 

E 


66  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

just  looked  in  at  an  evening  party,  which  bored 
him  badly,  and  has  "  cut "  two  others  where  he 
was  not  so  likely  to  be  missed.     And  now  arises 
the  vital  question  of  the   Balls.      I   use  the  plural 
number,  for  there  will  certainly  be  two,  and  prob- 
ably three,  to  choose  from.      Here,  at  St.  George's 
Hospital,  our  youth  is  at  the  centre  of  the  world's 
social  concourse.     A  swift  and  unbroken  stream 
of    carriages    is    pouring    down    from    Grosvenor 
Square  and  Mayfair  to  Belgrave  Square  and  Eaton 
Square   and  Chesham   Place,    and  it  meets    as    it 
goes   the    ascending  procession    which    begins   in 
Belgravia  and  ends  in  Portman  Square.     To-night 
there  is  a  Royal  Ball  at  Grosvenor  House,  certainly 
the  most  stately  event  of  the  season  ;  a  little  dance, 
exquisitely  gay  and  bright,  in  Piccadilly  ;  and    a 
gorgeous  entertainment   in   Prince's   Gate,   where 
the  aspiring  Distiller  is  struggling,  with  enormous 
outlay,  into  social  fame.     All  these  have  solicited 
the  honour  of  our  young  friend's  presence,  and 
now    is    the    moment   of    decision.      It    does    not 
take  long  to  repudiate   Prince's  Gate ;  there  will 
be   the  best   band   in    London,    and   ortolans    for 
supper,  but  there  will  be  no  one  there  that  one 
ever    saw   before,   and   it   is   too    sickening  to   be 
called  "  My  boy  "  by  that  bow- windowed  bounder, 
the   master    of  the   house.     There  remain    Gros- 
venor House  and  Piccadilly,  and  happily  these  can 
be  combined  in  a  harmonious  perfection.     Gros- 
venor  House  shall   come  first,   for  the  arrival  of 


THE   SEASON    AS    IT    WAS  67 

the  Prince  and  Princess  is  a  pageant  worth  seeing 
— the  most  gracious  host  and  the  most  beautiful 
hostess  in  London  ushering  the  Royal  guests, 
with  courtly  pomp,  into  the  great  gallery,  walled 
with  the  canvases  of  Rubens,  which  serves  as 
the  dancing-room.  Then  the  fun  begins,  and  the 
bright  hours  fly  swiftly,  till  one  o'clock  suggests 
the  tender  thought  of  supper,  which  is  served  on 
gold  plate  and  Sevres  china  in  a  garden-tent  of 
Gobelins  tapestry.  And  now  it  is  time  for  a 
move  ;  and  our  youth,  extricating  himself  from 
the  undesired  attentions  of  the  linkmen,  pops  into 
a  hansom  and  speeds  to  Piccadilly,  where  he  finds 
delights  of  a  different  kind — no  Royalty,  no  pomp, 
no  ceremony  ;  but  a  warm  welcome,  and  all  his 
intimate  friends,  and  the  nicest  girls  in  London 
eager  for  a  valse. 

As  day  begins  to  peep,  he  drinks  his  crown- 
ing tumbler  of  champagne-cup,  and  strolls  home 
under  the  opalescent  dawn,  sniffing  the  fragrance 
from  pyramids  of  strawberries  as  they  roll  to- 
wards Covent  Garden,  and  exchanging  a  friendly 
"  Good  night "  with  the  policeman  on  the  beat, 
who  seems  to  think  that  "  Good  morning  "  would 
be  a  more  suitable  greeting.  So  to  bed,  with 
the  cheerful  consciousness  of  a  day's  work  well 
done,  and  the  even  more  exhilarating  prospect 
of  an  unbroken  succession  of  such  days,  full  of 
feasting  and  dancing  and  riding  and  polo  and 
lawn-tennis,    till    August    stifles   the    Season   with 


68  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

its  dust  and  drives  the  revellers  to   Homburg  or 
the  moors. 

But  I  awake,  and  lo  !  it  is  a  dream,  though  a 
dream  well  founded  on  reality.  For  I  have  been 
describing  the  London  Season  as  it  was  when  the 
world  was  young. 

"  When  all  the  world  is  old,  lad, 

And  all  the  trees  are  brown ; 
And  all  the  sport  is  stale,  lad, 

And  all  the  wheels  run  down ; 
Creep  home,  and  take  your  place  there, 

The  spent  and  maimed  among  : 
God  grant  you  find  one  face  there, 

You  loved  when  all  was  young." 


X 

THE    SEASON    AS    IT    IS 

That  delicate  critic,  the  late  Mr.  William  Cory, 
observes  in  one  of  his  letters  that  Virgil's 

"  Sunt  lacrymae  rerum,  et  mentem  mortalia  tangunt  " 

has  its  modern  equivalent  in  Wordsworth's 

"  Men  are  we,  and  must  grieve  when  even  the  shade 
Of  that  which  once  was  great  is  passed  away." 

The  full  luxury  of  that  grief  is  reserved  for  those 
who,  a  decade  hence,  shall  moralize  on  "  the 
London  Season,"  for  the  thing  which  now  we  so 
describe  will  then  have  utterly  perished,  and  its 
name  will  only  arouse  a  tender  and  regretful 
emotion.  Even  now  we  have  seen  its  glories  fade, 
and  soon  it  will  have  shared  the  fate  of  those 
Venetian  splendours  which  Wordsworth  mourned. 
But  in  the  meantime  it  still  exists,  though  in  a 
vastly  different  form  from  that  which  it  wore  in 
mid-Victorian  years.  Just  now  I  was  describing 
some  of  the  changes  which  have  occurred  since 
the  distant  days  when  Bulwer-Lytton  and  Lord 
Beaconsfield  described  London  in  May  ;  and, 
following  humbly  in  their  wake,  I  endeavoured  to 

69 


70  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

depict  it  as  it  was  when  I  had  my  part  in  it.  But 
change  only  yields  place  to  change.  Society,  like 
the  individuals  who  compose  it,  passes  onward  in 
perpetual  vicissitude.  As  Shelley  says,  "  Naught 
may  endure  but  mutability."  So  the  London 
Season  of  1906  differs  as  notably  from  the 
Season  of  1880  as  the  Season  of  1880  from  that 
of  1846.  Let  me  catalogue  some  of  the  changes 
and  try  to  account  for  them.  In  the  first  place, 
the  Season  is  much  less  exactly  circumscribed  by 
dates.  In  days  gone  by,  it  began  with  the  Opening 
of  Parliament,  which  was  always  about  the  7th  of 
February,  and  it  lasted,  with  its  regular  inter- 
missions for  Easter  and  Whitsuntide,  till  the  last 
week  of  July.  Then  Society  transported  itself  in 
turn  to  Goodwood,  to  Cowes,  and  to  a  German 
watering-place  or  a  Scotch  moor,  according  to  its 
physical  condition,  and  it  was  darkly  rumoured 
that,  if  people  found  themselves  compelled  by 
domestic  or  financial  reasons  to  remain  in  London 
during  August,  they  sought  to  escape  detection  by 
keeping  the  windows  fronting  the  street  closely 
shuttered,  and  lived  in  their  back  rooms  in  un- 
broken contemplation  of  the  leads  and  the  mews. 
If  you  chanced  to  meet  a  man  in  Piccadilly  in 
September,  you  might  be  sure  that  he  would  be 
wearing  country  clothes  and  would  assure  you  that 
he  was  only  "  passing  through  "  between  Doncaster 
and  Scotland.  Nowadays  the  Season  has  no  par- 
ticular limits.     London  is  nearly  as  full  in  December 


THE    SEASON    AS    IT    IS  71 

as  it  is  in  May.     Dinners  and  plays  and  suppers  at 
restaurants  are  as  frequent,  and,  barring  the  fogs, 
as  bright,  at  Christmas  as  at  Midsummer.     Even 
in  September  Clubland  is  not  deserted  ;  and  there 
are  people  bold  enough  to  defy  the  world  by  re- 
turning  from    their   summer   exodus    as    early   as 
October.     The  reason  for  the  change,  as  for  many 
others  like  it,  is  the  reduction  of  territorial  incomes. 
1880  may  be  taken   as,   roughly,  the  last  of  the 
good  years   for  agriculture.     The  incessant  rains 
of    1879    had  even  then  begun  to  tell  their  tale. 
Tenants  were  asking  for  big  reductions,  and  farms 
hitherto  eagerly  sought  were  becoming  unlettable. 
I  know  a  landowner  on  a  great  scale  who,  a  year 
or  two  later,  only  pocketed  10  per  cent,  of  his  in- 
come   from    land,   whereas   five   years   before    he 
would  have  thought  an  abatement  of  10  per  cent, 
disastrous.     All  this  has  told  increasingly  on  social 
life,  for  people  found  themselves  unable  to  keep 
both  a  country  house  and  a  London  house  going 
at  the  same   time,    and,   being    driven    to  choose 
between  the  two,  often  decided  to  let  the  country 
house   and  its  shooting   and  make    London  their 
headquarters  for  the  whole  year.      So,  by  degrees, 
autumn    faded    imperceptibly   into   winter,  winter 
into    spring,    and    spring    into     summer.        Each 
season  in  its  turn  found  people  dwelling  peace- 
ably in  their  urban  habitations,  entertaining  and 
being  entertained  ;  and  so   "  the  Season "   lost  its 
sharp  edges.     The  meeting  of  Parliament  brought 


72  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

no  perceptible  change  in  the  aspect  of  the  town. 
"  High  Midsummer  Pomps  "  were  no  longer  so 
"  high  "  as  in  former  years,  but,  per  contra,  there 
was  much  more  gaiety  in  the  autumn  and  winter 
and  early  spring. 

Another  cause  which  has  contributed  to  the 
effacement  of  the  ancient  time-marks  is  that  the 
Court  tends  to  disregard  them.  Under  the  present 
reign,  Windsor  Castle  has  become  as  much  a  social 
centre  as  Buckingham  Palace.  There  are  banquets 
in  St.  George's  Hall  in  December,  as  well  as 
garden-parties  on  the  the  Slopes  in  June  ;  and  so, 
under  the  action  of  Royal  influence,  the  social 
seasons  melt  into  one  another,  like  the  hues  of  the 
prism.  Then,  again,  the  practice  of  the  "  Week- 
end," imported  from  Lancashire  and  sanctioned 
by  Westminster,  helps  to  denude  the  town  in 
summer  ;  for  the  "  end  "  tends  naturally  to  prolong 
itself  till  it  overlaps  the  beginning,  and  Friday-to- 
Tuesday  parties,  treading  on  the  heels  of  Whitsun- 
tide and  to  be  followed  in  quick  succession  by 
Ascot,  make  mish-mash  of  what  was  aforetime 
"  an  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite" — a  complete 
and  continuous  whole. 

In  describing  my  hero  of  1880  as  he  surveyed 
his  evening's  amusements  and  chose  the  most 
rewarding,  I  took  for  granted  that  he  had  at  least 
three  balls  to  choose  from.  Nowadays  he  is 
lucky  if  he  has  one.  Here  again,  and  con- 
spicuously,   agricultural    depression   has   made   its 


THE    SEASON    AS    IT    IS  73 

mark.  In  the  years  between  1870  and  1880, 
during  an  unbroken  spell  of  good  trade  and  good 
harvests,  rich  people  struggled  with  one  another 
for  a  vacant  night  on  which  to  entertain  their 
friends.  For  example,  Lady  A.  had  just  brought 
out  a  daughter,  and  wished  to  give  a  ball  for  her 
benefit.  Say  that  she  set  her  affections  on 
Monday  the  28th  of  May.  Before  she  issued  her 
cards  she  took  counsel  with  all  her  friends,  for  in 
those  days  ball-giving  mothers  were  a  sort  of 
Limited  Company,  and  all  knew  one  another. 
She  found  that  Mrs.  B.  had  mentally  fixed  on 
Tuesday,  29th,  and,  if  Mrs.  C.  had  thought  of 
Monday,  she  would  be  so  kind  as  to  take  Wed- 
nesday, 30th.  So  all  was  amicably  agreed  ;  there 
would  be  no  clashing,  which  would  be  such  a  pity 
and  would  spoil  both  balls  ;  and  the  cards  were 
duly  issued.  Directly  afterwards,  as  if  moved  by 
some   occult    and   fiendish    impulse,   the    Duchess 

of  D pounced  on  Monday,  28th,  for  a  Royal 

Ball  at  D House,  or,  worse  still  because  more 

perilously  tempting,  for  a  "  very  small  dance," 
to  which  all  the  nicest  young  men  would  go, 
and  where  they  would  stay  till  three.  In  the  face 
of  such  mortifications  as  these,  the  emulous  hospi- 
talities of  the  aspiring  Distiller  were  of  no  account ; 
for  the  "  nice  men  "  would  either  disregard  them, 
or,  having  looked  in  for  half-an-hour,  would  come 
on  to  spend  the  night  at  the  houses  where  they 
felt  themselves  at  home. 


74  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

The  hero  of  1880,  if  only  he  was  well  connected, 
well  mannered,  and  sufficiently  well  known,  might 
fairly  reckon  on  dining  six  nights  out  of  the  seven 
at    a   host's    expense.      Indeed,    if   he   was    at   all 
popular,  he  could  safely  afford  to  decline  the  invi- 
tation which  old  Mr.  Wellbore  issued  six  weeks  in 
advance  and  reserve  himself  for  a  livelier  meal  at 
shorter  notice.     Not  so  to-day.     Our  young  friend, 
if  he  has  a  constitutional  objection  to  paying  for 
his  own  dinner,  must  take  what  he  can  get  in  the 
way  of  invitations,  and  not  be  too  particular  about 
the  cook   or    the   company.      Here   the   cause   of 
change   is   not   decrease   of   wealth.     As   long   as 
there  is  a    balance   at  the  bank,  and  even  when 
there  is  none,  people  will  dine  ;  and  dinner-giving 
is  the  last  form  of  hospitality  which  Society  will 
let  die.     But  nowadays  dinners  are  made  ancillary 
to  Bridge.     If  our  friend  cannot   afford   to    lose 
.£50  in  an  evening  he  will  not  be  asked  to  dine  at 
a  house  which  reckons  itself  as  belonging  to  "  the 
Mode  "  ;  or  if,  for  old   acquaintance'  sake,  he  is 
allowed  to  find  a  place  at  the  dinner-table,  he  is 
compelled  to  sit  all  the  evening  by  the  least  attrac- 
tive daughter  of  the  house,  or   to  listen  to  some 
fogey,  too  fossilized  for  Bridge,  discoursing  on  the 
iniquities  of  Mr.  Birrell's  Bill.     "Tobacco,"  said 
Lord   Beaconsfield,  "  is   the  Tomb  of   Love."      If 
he  were  with  us   now,  he  would  pronounce  that 
Bridge  is  the  Extinguisher  of  Hospitality. 

Yet  once  again   I   note  a  startling  discrepancy 


THE    SEASON    AS    IT    IS  75 

between  the  Season  as  it  was  and  the  Season  as 
it  is.  Then  a  young  man  who  wanted  air  and 
exercise  in  the  afternoon  played  tennis  at  Lord's, 
or  skated  at  Prince's,  or  took  a  gallop  in  Richmond 
Park,  or,  if  he  was  very  adventurous  and  up-to- 
date,  sped  out  to  Hampton  Court  or  Windsor  on 
a  bone-shaking  bicycle  six  feet  high.  All  these 
recreations  are  possible  to  him  to-day  ;  but  all 
have  yielded  to  motoring.  Dressed  in  the  most 
unbecoming  of  all  known  costumes,  his  expressive 
eyes  concealed  by  goggles,  and  his  graceful  pro- 
portions swathed  in  oilskin,  he  urges  his  mad 
career  to  Brighton  or  Stratford  or  Salisbury  Plain. 
No  doubt  he  has  the  most  fascinating  companions 
in  the  world,  for  girls  are  enthusiastic  motorists  ; 
but  I  fancy  that  Edwin  and  Angelina  presented  a 
more  attractive  appearance  when,  neatly  dressed 
and  beautifully  mounted,  they  rode  in  the  cool  of 
the  evening  along  the  shady  side  of  Rotten  Row. 

However,  I  am  a  kind  of  social  "  Old  Mortality  " 
rummaging  among  the  tombs  of  what  has  been 
and  can  be  no  more,  and  I  fancy  that  Old  Mor- 
tality's opinions  on  youth  and  beauty  would  have 
been  justly  disregarded. 


XI 

THE    SINS    OF    SOCIETY 

In  the  year  1870  a  flame  of  religous  zeal  was 
suddenly  kindled  in  the  West  End  of  London. 
In  that  year  the  Rev.  George  Howard  Wilkinson 
(now  Bishop  of  St.  Andrews)  was  appointed  Vicar 
of  St.  Peter's,  Eaton  Square.  The  church  in  the 
Belgravian  district  was  as  dry  as  tinder  ;  it  caught 
fire  from  Mr.  Wilkinson's  fervour,  and  the  fire 
soon  became  a  conflagration.  This  is  Matthew 
Arnold's  description  of  the  great  preacher  at  the 
height  of  his  power  :  "  He  was  so  evidently  sincere, 
more  than  sincere,  burnt  up  with  sorrow,  that  he 
carried  every  one  with  him,  and  half  the  church 
was  in  tears.  I  do  not  much  believe  in  good 
being  done  by  a  man  unless  he  can  give  tight,  and 
Wilkinson's  fire  is  very  turbid  ;  but  his  power 
of  heating,  penetrating,  and  agitating  is  extra- 
ordinary." This  description  belongs  to  the  year 
1872,  but  it  might  have  been  written  with  equal 
truth  at  any  date  between  1870  and  1883.  In 
all  my  experience  of  preaching  (which  is  long, 
wide,  and  varied)  I  have  never  seen  a  congregation 

dominated    by   its   minister   so   absolutely   as  the 

76 


THE    SINS    OF    SOCIETY  77 

congregation  of  St.  Peter's  was  dominated  by  Mr. 
Wilkinson.  I  say  u  congregation  "  advisedly,  for 
I  should  think  that  at  least  half  the  seatholders 
belonged  to  other  parishes.  The  smartest  carriages 
in  London  blocked  the  approach  to  the  church. 
The  great  dames  of  Grosvenor  Square  and  Carlton 
House  Terrace  rubbed  shoulders  with  the  opulent 
inhabitants  of  Tyburnia  and  South  Kensington, 
Cabinet  Ministers  fought  for  places  in  the  gallery, 
and  M.P.'s  were  no  more  accounted  of  than  silver 
in  the  days  of  Solomon. 

And  this  was  not  a  mere  assemblage  of  hearers. 
The  congregation  of  St.  Peter's  were  pre-eminently 
givers.  ^4000  a  year  was  the  regular  product  of 
the  alms-bags,  let  alone  the  innumerable  sums 
sent  privately  to  the  Vicar.  "  I  want  a  thousand 
pounds."  This  simple  but  emphatic  statement 
from  the  pulpit  one  Sunday  was  succeeded  on  the 
following  Sunday  by  the  quiet  announcement,  "  I 
have  got  a  thousand  pounds."  What  was  the 
secret  of  this  attraction  ?  It  was  entirely  personal. 
It  did  not  in  the  least  depend  on  theological  bias. 
Mr.  Wilkinson  belonged  to  no  party.  He  had 
begun  life  as  an  Evangelical,  and  he  retained  the 
unction  and  fervour  which  were  characteristic  of 
that  school  at  its  best ;  but  he  was  feeling  his  way 
towards  a  higher  churchmanship,  and  had  dis- 
carded most  of  his  earlier  shibboleths.  The  fabric 
was  frankly  hideous,  and  the  well-meant  attempts 
to  make  it  look  less  like  a  barn  and  more  like  a 


78  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

church  only  resulted  in  something  between  a 
mosque  and  a  synagogue.  There  was  no  ritualism. 
The  music  was  too  elaborate  for  the  choir,  and 
the  curates  were  feeble  beyond  all  description. 
The  Vicar  was  everything  ;  and  even  he  had  none 
of  the  gifts  which  are  commonly  supposed  to  make 
a  Popular  Preacher.  He  was  not  the  least  flum- 
mery or  flowery.  He  was  reserved  and  dignified 
in  manner,  and  his  language  was  quite  unadorned. 
His  voice  was  a  monotonous  moan,  occasionally 
rising  into  a  howl.  He  was  conspicuously  free 
from  the  tendency  to  prophesy  smooth  things, 
and  he  even  seemed  to  take  a  delight  in  rubbing 
the  pungent  lotion  of  his  spiritual  satire  into  the 
sore  places  of  the  hearers'  conscience.  If  Jeremiah 
had  prophesied  in  a  surplice,  he  would  have  been 
like  the  Prophet  of  Belgravia  ;  and  as  for  Savona- 
rola, his  sermon,  as  paraphrased  in  chapter  xxiv. 
of  "  Romola,"  might  have  been  delivered,  with 
scarcely  a  word  altered,  from  the  pulpit  of  St. 
Peter's. 

And  here  we  touch  the  pith  and  core  of  Mr. 
Wilkinson's  preaching.  He  rebuked  the  Sins  of 
Society  as  no  one  had  ventured  to  rebuke  them 
since  the  days  of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys.  The 
Tractarian  Movement,  so  heart-searching,  so  con- 
science-stirring at  Oxford,  had  succumbed  in  the 
fashionable  parts  of  London  to  the  influences 
which  surrounded  it,  and  had  degenerated  into  a 
sort    of    easy-going    ceremonialism — partly    anti- 


THE    SINS    OF    SOCIETY  79 

quarian,  partly  worldly,  and  wholly  ineffective  for 
spiritual  revival  or  moral  reformation.  Into  this 
Dead  Sea  of  lethargy  and  formalism  Mr.  Wilkinson 
burst  like  a  gunboat.  He  scattered  his  fire  left 
and  right,  aimed  high  and  aimed  low,  blazed  and 
bombarded  without  fear  or  favour  ;  sent  some 
crafts  to  the  bottom,  set  fire  to  others,  and  covered 
the  sea  with  wreckage.  In  less  metaphorical  lan- 
guage, he  rebuked  the  sins  of  all  and  sundry,  from 
Duchesses  to  scullery-maids,  Premiers  to  page- 
boys, octogenarian  rakes  to  damsels  in  their  teens. 
Then,  as  now,  Society  loved  to  be  scolded,  and 
the  more  Mr.  Wilkinson  thundered  the  more  it 
crowded  to  his  feet.  "  Pay  your  bills."  "Get  up 
when  you  are  called."  "  Don't  stay  till  three  at  a 
ball  and  then  say  that  you  are  too  delicate  for 
early  services."  "  Eat  one  dinner  a  day  instead 
of  three,  and  try  to  earn  that  one."  "  Give  up 
champagne  for  the  season,  and  what  you  save  on 
your  wine-merchant's  bill  send  to  the  Mission 
Field."  "  You  are  sixty-five  years  old  and  have 
not  been  confirmed.  Never  too  late  to  mend. 
Join  a  Confirmation  Class  at  once,  and  try  to 
remedy,  by  good  example  now,  all  the  harm  you 
have  done  your  servants  or  your  neighbours  by 
fifty  years'  indifference."  «  Sell  that  diamond 
cross  which  you  carry  with  you  into  the  sin- 
polluted  atmosphere  of  the  Opera,  give  the  pro- 
ceeds to  feed  the  poor,  and  wear  the  only  real 
cross — the  cross  of  self-discipline  and  self-denial." 


80  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

These  are  echoes — faint,  indeed,  but  not,  I  think, 
unfaithful — of  thirty  years  ago,  and  they  have 
suddenly  been  awoke  from  their  long  slumber  by 
the  sermons  which  Father  Vaughan  has  just  been 
preaching  at  the  Jesuits'  Church  in  Farm  Street, 
Mayfair.  The  good  Father,  exalting  his  own 
church,  perhaps  a  little  unduly,  at  the  expense  of 
the  Anglican  churches  in  the  district,  observed 
complacently  that  "  Farm  Street,  in  spite  of  its 
extension,  was  all  too  small  "  for  its  congregation. 
For  my  own  part,  I  do  not  belong  to  that  fold, 
and  I  never  wander  to  strange  churches  for  the 
pleasure  of  having  my  ears  tickled  ;  so  I  only  know 
Father  Vaughan's  utterances  as  they  reach  me 
through  the  newspapers.  A  report  in  the  third 
person  always  tends  to  enfeeble  rhetoric  ;  but,  in 
spite  of  that  hindrance,  Father  Vaughan's  style 
seems  to  lack  nothing  in  the  way  of  emphasis  or 
directness.  Here  is  a  fragment  of  his  sermon 
preached  on  Sunday  the  ioth  of  June  1906  : — 

"  It  was  no  easy  task  for  the  votaries  of  pleasure 
when  Sunday  came  round  to  all  of  a  sudden  forget 
their  class  distinctions,  their  privileged  sets,  their 
social  successes,  their  worldly  goods,  and  to  re- 
member that  they  were  going  into  the  presence  of 
Him  before  whom  man  and  woman  were  not  what 
they  happened  to  have,  but  what  they  happened  to 
be — that  the  debutante  beauty  might  be  before 
God  less  than  her  maid  who  waited  up  half  the 
night  for  her,  nay,  less  than  the  meanest  scullery- 


THE    SINS    OF    SOCIETY  81 

maid  below  stairs  ;  while  the  millionaire  with  means 
to  buy  up  whole  countries  might  be  in  God's  sight 
far  less  pleasing  and  very  much  more  guilty  than 
the  lowest  groom  in  his  stable  yard." 

Not  less  vigorous  was  the  allocution  of  June  17. 

"  If  Dives,  who  was  buried  in  Hell,  were  to 
revisit  the  earth  he  would  most  surely  have  the 
entree  to  London's  smartest  set  to-day.  He  would 
be  literally  pelted  with  invitations.  And  why  not  ? 
Dives,  so  well  groomed  and  turned  out,  with  such 
a  well-lined  larder  and  so  well-stocked  a  cellar, 
would  be  the  very  ideal  host  to  cultivate.  He 
would  '  do  you  so  well,'  you  would  meet  the  '  right 
people  at  his  place/  and  you  could  always  bring 
your  '  latest  friend.'  Besides,  what  a  good  time 
one  would  have  at  his  house-parties,  where  there 
would  be  no  fear  of  being  bored  or  dull  ! "  * 

And  yet  again  : — 

"  It  was  well  when  the  winning-card  fell  into 
their  hands,  for  then  there  was  just  a  chance  of 
some  dressmaker  or  tradesman  being  paid  some- 
thing on  account  before  becoming  bankrupt.  With 
such  examples  of  the  misuse  of  wealth  before 
their  eyes,  it  was  a  wonder  there  were  not  more 
Socialists  than  there  actually  were." 

All  the  memories  of  my  youth  have  been  re- 
vived by  Father  Vaughan.  Instead  of  1906, 
1876  ;     instead    of    the    Gothic    gloom    of    Farm 

1  Here  I  seem  to  catch  an  echo  of  Dr.  Pusey's  sermon  on  "Why 
did  Dives  lose  his  soul  ?  " 

F 


82  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Street,  the  tawdry  glare  of  St.  Peter's,  Eaton 
Square  ;  instead  of  a  Jesuit  Father  in  the  pulpit, 
a  vigorous  Protestant  who  renounces  the  Pope 
and  all  his  works  and  glories  in  the  Angli- 
canism of  the  Church  of  England.  Grant  those 
differences,  which  after  all  are  more  incidental 
than  essential,  and  the  sermons  exactly  reproduce 
those  stirring  days  when  the  present  Bishop  of 
St.  Andrews  "  shook  the  arsenal "  of  fashion, 
"  thundered  over "  London,  and  achieved,  as  his 
admirers  said,  the  supreme  distinction  of  spoiling 
the  London  Season. 

I  am  convinced  that  the  Higher  Critics  of  a 
later  age,  collating  the  Wilkinsonian  tradition  with 
such  fragments  as  remain  of  Father  Vaughan's 
discourses,  will  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
"  Wilkinson "  never  existed  (except  in  Words- 
worth's ode  to  the  Spade),  but  was  a  kind  of  heroic 
figure  conceived  by  a  much  later  generation,  which 
had  quivered  under  the  rhetoric  of  a  real  person 
or  persons  called  Vaughan ;  and  the  opinion  of 
the  learned  will  be  sharply  divided  on  such 
questions  as  whether  Vaughan  was  one  or  many  ; 
if  one,  whether  he  was  a  Priest,  a  Cardinal,  a 
Head  Master,  or  an  Independent  Minister ;  or 
whether  he  was  all  four  at  different  stages  of  his 
career. 


XII 

OXFORD 

"  Once,  my  dear — but  the  world  was  young  then — 
Magdalen  elms  and  Trinity  limes, — 
Lissom  the  oars  and  backs  that  swung  then, 
Eight  good  men  in  the  good  old  times — 
Careless  we  and  the  chorus  flung  then. 
Under  St.  Mary's  chimes  ! 

"  Still  on  her  spire  the  pigeons  hover  ; 
Still  by  her  gateway  flits  the  gown  ; 
Ah,  but  her  secret  ?     You,  young  lover, 

Drumming  her  old  ones  forth  from  town, 
Know  you  the  secret  none  discover? 

Tell  it — when  you  go  down." 

What  Matthew  Arnold  did  for  the  interpretation 
of  Oxford  through  the  medium  of  prose,  that  Mr. 
Quiller-Couch  has  done  through  the  medium  of 
verse.  In  the  poem  from  which  I  have  just  quoted 
two  stanzas  he  conveys,  as  no  one  else  has  ever 
conveyed  it  in  poetry,  the  tender  and  elusive  charm 
of  that  incomparable  place. 

"  Know  you  her  secret  none  can  utter — 
Hers  of  the  Book,  the  tripled  Crown  ?  " 

It  is  a  hard  question,  and  susceptible  of  some  very 

83 


84  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

prosaic  and  therefore  inappropriate  answers.  The 
true  answer  can,  I  think,  only  be  given  by  those 
for  whom  Oxford  lies,  half  hid,  in  the  enchanted 
past :  "  Tell  it — when  you  go  down." 

Some  parts  of  the  spell  which  Oxford  exercises 
on  those  who  are  subjected  to  her  influence  are  in 
no  sense  secret.  We  perceive  them  from  the  day 
when  we  first  set  foot  within  her  precincts,  and 
the  sense  of  them  abides  with  us  for  ever. 

"  If  less  insensible  than  sodden  clay 
In  a  sea-river's  bed  at  ebb  of  tide," 

all  sons  of  Oxford  must  realize  her  material  beauty, 
her  historical  pre-eminence,  her  contribution  to 
thought  and  culture,  her  influence  on  the  religious 
life  of  England. 

"  Ah,  but  her  secret  ?     You,  young  lover." 

There  is  nothing  secret  about  all  this  ;  it  is  palp- 
able and  manifest ;  and  yet  it  does  not  exhaust 
the  spell.  Something  there  is  that  remains  un- 
discovered, or  at  best  half-discovered — felt  and 
guessed  at,  but  not  clearly  apprehended — until  we 
have  passed  away  from  the  "  dreaming  spires  " — 
the  cloisters  and  the  gardens  and  the  river — to 
that  sterner  life  for  which  these  mysterious  en- 
chantments have  been  preparing  us. 

" Know  you  the  secret  none  discover?" 

If  you  do,  that  is  proof  that  time  has  done  its  work 
and  has  brought  to  the  test  of  practical  result  the 
influences    which   were  shaping  your   mind    and, 


OXFORD  85 

still  more  potently,  your  heart,  between  eighteen 
and  twenty-two.  What  that  "  secret "  is,  let  an 
unworthy  son  of  Oxford  try  to  tell. 

To  begin  with  a  negative,  it  is  not  the  secret  of 
Nirvana.  There  are  misguided  critics  abroad  in 
the  land  who  seem  to  assume  that  life  lived  easily 
in  a  beautiful  place,  amid  a  society  which  includes 
all  knowledge  in  its  comprehensive  survey,  and  far 
remote  from  the  human  tragedy  of  poverty  and 
toil  and  pain,  must  necessarily  be  calm.  And  so, 
as  regards  the  actual  work  and  warfare  of  man- 
kind, it  may  be.  The  bitter  cry  of  starving  Poplar 
does  not  very  readily  penetrate  to  the  well-spread 
table  of  an  Oxford  common-room.  In  a  labur- 
num-clad villa  in  the  Parks  we  can  afford  to 
reason  very  temperately  about  life  in  cities  where 
five  families  camp  in  one  room.  But  when  we 
leave  the  actualities  of  life  and  come  to  the  region 
of  thought  and  opinion,  all  the  pent  energy  of 
Oxford  seethes  and  stirs.  The  Hebrew  word  for 
"  Prophet  "  comes,  I  believe,  from  a  root  which 
signifies  to  bubble  like  water  on  the  flames  ;  and 
in  this  fervency  of  thought  and  feeling  Oxford  is 
characteristically  prophetic.  It  is  a  tradition  that 
in  some  year  of  the  passion-torn  'forties  the  sub- 
ject for  the  Newdigate  Prize  Poem  was  Cromwell, 
whereas  the  subject  for  the  corresponding  poem  at 
Cambridge  was  Plato.  In  that  selection  Oxford 
was  true  to  herself.  For  a  century  at  least  (even 
if  we  leave  out  of  sight  her  earlier  convulsions)  she 


86  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

has  been  the  battle-field  of  contending  sects.  Her 
air  has  resounded  with  party-cries,  and  the  dead 
bodies  of  the  controversially  slain  have  lain  thick 
in  her  streets.  All  the  opposing  forces  of  Church 
and  State,  of  theology  and  politics,  of  philosophy 
and  science,  of  literary  and  social  and  economic 
theory,  have  contended  for  mastery  in  the  place 
which  Matthew  Arnold,  with  rare  irony,  described 
as  "  so  unruffled  by  the  fierce  intellectual  life  of  our 
century,  so  serene  ! "  Every  succeeding  genera- 
tion of  Oxford  men  has  borne  its  part  in  these  ever- 
recurring  strifes.  To  hold  aloof  from  them  would 
have  been  poltroonery.  Passionately  convinced 
(at  twenty)  that  we  had  sworn  ourselves  for  life  to 
each  cause  which  we  espoused,  we  have  pleaded 
and  planned  and  denounced  and  persuaded  ;  have 
struck  the  shrewdest  blows  which  our  strength 
could  compass,  and  devised  the  most  dangerous 
pitfalls  which  wit  could  suggest.  Nothing  came 
of  it  all,  and  nothing  could  come,  except  the  ruin 
of  our  appointed  studies  and  the  resulting  disloca- 
tion of  all  subsequent  life.  But  we  were  obeying 
the  irresistible  impulse  of  the  time  and  the  place  in 
which  our  lot  was  cast,  and  we  were  ready  to  risk 
our  all  upon  the  venture. 

"  Never  we  wince,  though  none  deplore  us, 
We  who  go  reaping  that  we  sowed ; 
Cities  at  cockcrow  wake  before  us — 

Hey,  for  the  lilt  of  the  London  road  ! 
One  look  back,  and  a  rousing  chorus  ! 
Never  a  palinode  !  " 


OXFORD  87 

It  is  when  we  have  finally  sung  that  chorus  and 
have  travelled  a  few  miles  upon  that  road,  that  we 
learn  the  secret  which  we  never  discovered  while 
as  yet  Oxford  held  us  in  the  thick  of  the  fight. 
We  thought  then  that  we  were  the  most  desperate 
partizans ;  we  asked  no  quarter,  and  gave  none  ; 
pushed  our  argumentative  victories  to  their  utter- 
most consequences,  and  made  short  work  of  a 
fallen  foe.  But,  when  all  the  old  battle-cries  have 
died  out  of  our  ears,  we  begin  to  perceive  humaner 
voices.  All  at  once  we  realize  that  a  great  part  of 
our  old  contentions  was  only  sound  and  fury  and 
self-deception,  and  that,  though  the  causes  for 
which  we  strove  may  have  been  absolutely  right, 
our  opponents  were  not  necessarily  villains.  In  a 
word,  we  have  learnt  the  Secret  of  Oxford.  All 
the  time  that  we  were  fighting  and  fuming,  the 
higher  and  subtler  influences  of  the  place  were 
moulding  us,  unconscious  though  we  were,  to  a 
more  gracious  ideal.  We  had  really  learnt  to 
distinguish  between  intellectual  error  and  moral 
obliquity.  We  could  differ  from  another  on  every 
point  of  the  political  and  theological  compass, 
and  yet  in  our  hearts  acknowledge  him  to  be 
the  best  of  all  good  fellows.  Without  surren- 
dering a  single  conviction,  we  came  to  see 
the  virtue  of  so  stating  our  beliefs  as  to  per- 
suade and  propitiate,  instead  of  offending  and 
alienating.  We  had  attained  to  that  temper 
which,    in    the    sphere    of    thought    and    opinion, 


88  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

is  analogous  to  the  crowning  virtue  of  Christian 
charity. 

"  Tell  it — when  you  go  down.  " 

Lately  it  has  been  my  privilege  to  address  a 
considerable  gathering  of  Oxford  undergraduates, 
all  keenly  alive  to  the  interests  and  controversies 
of  the  present  hour,  all  devotedly  loyal  to  the 
tradition  of  Oxford  as  each  understood  it,  and  all 
with  their  eyes  eagerly  fixed  on  "  the  wistful  limit 
of  the  world."  With  such  an  audience  it  was 
inevitable  to  insist  on  the  graces  and  benedictions 
which  Oxford  can  confer,  and  to  dwell  on  Mr. 
Gladstone's  dogma  that  to  call  a  man  a  "  typically 
Oxford  man  "  is  to  bestow  the  highest  possible 
praise. 

But  this  was  not  all.  Something  more  re- 
mained to  be  said.  It  was  for  a  speaker  who  had 
travelled  for  thirty  years  on  "  the  London  road  " 
to  state  as  plainly  as  he  could  his  own  deepest 
obligation  to  the  place  which  had  decided  the 
course  and  complexion  of  his  life.  And,  when 
it  was  difficult  to  express  that  obligation  in  the 
pedestrian  prose  of  an  after-dinner  speech,  he 
turned  for  succour  to  the  poet  who  sang  of  "  the 
secret  none  discover."  Wherever  philosophical 
insight  is  combined  with  literary  genius  and 
personal  charm,  one  says  instinctively,  "  That  man 
is,  or  ought  to  be,  an  Oxford  man."  Chiefest 
among  the  great  names  which  Oxford  ought  to 
claim  but  cannot  is  the  name  of  Edmund  Burke  ; 


OXFORD  89 

and  the  "  Secret  "  on  which  we  have  been  discours- 
ing seems  to  be  conveyed  with  luminous  precision 
in  his  description  of  the  ideal  character :  "  It  is 
our  business  ...  to  bring  the  dispositions  that 
are  lovely  in  private  life  into  the  service  and 
conduct  of  the  commonwealth  ;  so  to  be  patriots 
as  not  to  forget  we  are  gentlemen  ;  to  cultivate 
friendships  and  to  incur  enmities  ;  to  have  both 
strong,  but  both  selected — in  the  one  to  be 
placable,  in  the  other  immovable."  Whoso  has 
attained  to  that  ideal  has  learnt  the  "  Secret  "  of 
Oxford. 


XIII 

SCHOOLS    FOR    SHEPHERDS 

"  The  hungry  sheep  look  up,  and  are  not  fed." 

Why  not  ?  Because  the  Shepherds  are  so  im- 
perfectly trained  for  their  business.  This,  at  any 
rate,  is  the  testimony  of  a  Canon  (sometime 
Examining  Chaplain  to  a  Bishop)  who  at  the 
Diocesan  Conference  at  Ely  the  other  day  de- 
clared that  the  clergy  were  "  not  qualified  to  pro- 
vide instruction  in  Church  Doctrine  for  the  laity 
because  they  were  not  properly  trained '' ;  and 
further  testified  that  "  Nonconformist  Ministers 
were  much  better  trained "  than  the  English 
Clergy.  This  testimony  from  a  superior  Shepherd 
is  rather  startling  for  the  Sheep,  and  it  suggests 
some  interesting  comparisons.  It  is,  I  take  it, 
unquestionable  that  Nonconformist  ministers  and 
Roman  Catholic  priests  alike  have  much  more  of 
a  technical  education  than  is  thought  necessary 
for  their  Anglican  brothers.  They  are,  so  to  say, 
caught  early,  and  their  studies  from  seventeen  or 
eighteen  onwards  are  directed  steadily  towards 
their  appointed  work  in  life.     A  Roman  Seminarist 

learns  his  Latin  and  Greek  as  subsidiary  to  higher 

90 


SCHOOLS    FOR    SHEPHERDS  91 

studies  ;  he  spends,  I  believe,  two  years  in  Philo- 
sophy and  four  in  Theology,  and  is  harassed  by 
incessant  examinations.  The  training  of  the  youth 
who  aspires  to  the  Nonconformist  ministry  is  of 
much  the  same  kind.  "  Moral  Theology,"  in 
other  words  the  Science  of  the  Confessional,  he 
naturally  does  not  learn  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  is  sedulously  trained  for  the  work  of  public 
speaking  and  preaching.  "  If  you  can't  preach," 
said  Spurgeon  to  his  students  at  Stockwell,  "  it  is 
a  clear  proof  that  God  doesn't  mean  you  to  be 
a  preacher,  and  you  must  choose  some  other 
occupation." 

Vastly  different  is  the  training  of  the  Eng- 
lish Curate.  Private  School,  Public  School,  and 
University :  cricket,  football,  rowing :  elementary 
Greek  and  Latin,  and  a  smattering  of  Law  or 
History — these  constitute  his  "  atmosphere,"  his 
moral  and  mental  discipline,  between  the  ages  of 
ten  and  twenty-three.  Even  more  remarkable  is 
his  theological  equipment.  In  ninety-nine  cases 
out  of  a  hundred,  he  knows  absolutely  nothing 
about  the  Church  of  which  he  is  to  be  a  minister, 
her  doctrines,  history,  or  practical  system.  He 
has  been  enveloped  from  his  youth  up  by  a  hazy 
atmosphere  of  Undogmatic  Religion.  I  well  re- 
member that  an  Undergraduate  friend  of  mine, 
who  came  to  Oxford  from  Dr.  Temple's  Sixth 
Form  at  Rugby,  declined  to  believe  that  there 
are  two  Sacraments.     That  there  was  a  religious 


92  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

ceremony  called  "The  Sacrament,"  for  which 
some  people  stayed  after  the  ordinary  service, 
he  was  well  aware,  as  also  that  infants  were 
ceremonially  sprinkled  ;  but  that  this  latter  cere- 
mony was  a  Sacrament  he  could  not  be  induced 
to  believe.  During  his  last  year  at  Oxford  he 
informed  himself  better  on  this  and  some  similar 
topics,  and  a  year  afterwards  was  preaching,  with 
great  acceptance,  to  a  fashionable  congregation. 
From  what  I  knew  of  my  friend's  theological 
attainments,  I  should  imagine  that  the  Bishop's 
Examination  could  not  have  been  a  very  terrifying 
process  ;  but  forty  years  earlier  it  must  have  been 
even  less  formidable.  The  Hon.  and  Rev.  George 
Spencer  (uncle  of  the  present  Lord  Spencer)  was 
destined  from  an  early  age  for  the  Family  Living 
in  Northamptonshire.  He  hunted  and  shot,  and 
danced,  and  travelled  on  the  Continent,  and  held 
a  commission  in  the  Yeomanry.  After  two  years 
at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  he  took  a  "  Noble- 
man's Degree,"  and,  when  he  neared  the  canonical 
age  of  twenty-three,  he  wrote  to  the  Bishop  of 
Peterborough's  Examining  Chaplain  offering  him- 
self for  Ordination  and  asking  advice  as  to  his 
preparation.  The  examiner — ah,  would  that  there 
were  more  like  him  ! — wrote  back  : — 

"  It  is  impossible  that  I  should  ever  entertain 
any  idea  of  subjecting  a  gentleman  with  whose 
talents  and  good  qualities  I  am  so  well  acquainted 
as  I  am  with  yours  to  any  examination  except  as 


SCHOOLS    FOR    SHEPHERDS  93 

a  matter  of  form,  for  which  a  verse  in  the  Greek 
Testament  and  an  Article  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land returned  into  Latin  will  be  amply  sufficient." 

This  reassuring  letter  was  written  on  the  12th 
of  October  1822,  and  on  the  22nd  of  December 
next  ensuing  George  Spencer  was  ordained  Deacon 
and  a  year  later  Priest.  "  On  the  evening  before 
the  ordination,  whilst  the  Bishop  and  various 
clergymen  and  their  ladies  and  the  candidates 
amused  themselves  with  a  rubber  of  whist,  Mr. 
Spencer  refused  to  play."  And  the  refusal  was 
considered,  as  perhaps  it  was,  noteworthy. 

The  Movement  which  issued  from  Oxford  in 
1833  introduced  some  inprovement  into  the 
method  of  conducting  ordinations,  as  into  other 
departments  of  the  Church's  work.  The  exami- 
nation became,  though  not  yet  very  serious,  at 
least  a  little  less  farcical,  and  some  attempt  was 
made  in  charges  and  sermons  to  urge  upon  the 
candidates  the  gravity  of  what  they  were  under- 
taking. But,  according  to  the  late  Bishop  Wood- 
ford, "  the  evenings,  during  which  they  were  left 
to  themselves,  became  evenings  of  social  enjoy- 
ment, if  not  of  boisterous  merriment,  in  which  the 
features  of  an  old  college  supper-party  were  re- 
produced, rather  than  intervals  of  solemn  thought 
and  retirement." 

Bishop  Samuel  Wilberforce  raised  the  standard 
of  what  was  expected  in  the  way  of  Scriptural 
and  theological  knowledge  ;  he  made  the  exami- 


94  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

nation  a  reality  ;  he  laid  special  stress  on  sermon- 
writing  ;  and  he  made  the  Ember  Week  a  season 
of  spiritual  retirement  in  which  men  about  to  take 
the  most  decisive  step  in  life  might  be  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  responsibilities  involved  in 
their  decision.  The  example  set  by  Wilberforce 
was  followed,  sooner  or  later,  by  every  bishop  on 
the  bench  ;  the  requirements  have  been  raised,  and 
the  system  has  been  developed  and  improved  ; 
but  the  credit  of  initiation  belongs  to  that  epoch- 
making  episcopate,  which  began  in  1845  and 
ended,  through  a  false  step  made  by  a  horse  on 
the  Surrey  Downs,  on  the  19th  of  July  1873. 

It  soon  became  apparent  to  those  who  had  the 
spiritual  interests  of  the  Church  at  heart  that 
something  more  than  twelve  months'  book-work 
and  a  week  of  religious  retirement  was  required  to 
wean  the  ordinary  B.A.  from  the  puerilities — if 
nothing  worse — of  his  Undergraduate  life,  and  to 
equip  him  for  a  life  of  Pastorship  and  Teachership. 
The  sense  of  this  need  gave  rise  to  the  creation 
of  Theological  Colleges,  where  a  man  who  looked 
forward  to  Holy  Orders  might,  after  taking  his 
ordinary  degree  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  apply 
himself  to  the  studies  more  specially  necessary  for 
his  chosen  work,  and — even  more  important  still — 
might  acquire  the  habits  of  methodical  and  self- 
disciplined  life.  The  idea  took  shape  in  such 
foundations  as  the  Theological  Colleges  of  Wells, 
Cuddesdon,  Sarum,  and  Ely,  the  ScJiolce  Cancellarii 


SCHOOLS    FOR    SHEPHERDS  95 

at  Lincoln,  and  the  Clergy  School  at  Leeds. 
Fighting  their  way  through  all  manner  of  strange 
misrepresentations  about  Monasticism  and  Medi- 
aevalism,  they  have  in  the  course  of  years  attained 
to  recognition,  popularity,  and  apparent  stability. 
The  bishops  patronize  them  warmly,  and  incum- 
bents who  desire  curates  not  wholly  ignorant  of 
their  craft  are  increasingly  unwilling  to  engage  one 
who  has  not  passed  through  a  Theological  College. 
That  the  broad  result  of  the  training  given  in 
these  seminaries  is  a  general  increase  in  clerical 
efficiency  I  cannot  doubt,  but  perhaps  a  layman 
may  be  permitted  to  point  out  some  curious  gaps 
and  lapses  in  that  training  which  go  some  way 
towards  making  clergymen  less  esteemed,  and 
therefore  less  influential,  than  they  ought  to  be. 

1.  The  Clergy  are  not  taught  to  be  courteous. 
If  they  are  courteous  by  nature  and  habit,  well 
and  good  ;  but  a  rough  Undergraduate,  destitute 
of  sympathy  and  tact  and  ignorant  of  social  usage, 
passes  through  a  Theological  College  and  comes 
out  as  rough  as  he  entered  it.  A  Bear  in  Holy 
Orders  is  as  destructive  as  a  Bull  in  a  China 
Shop. 

2.  The  Clergy  are  not  taught  to  manage  money  ; 
they  muddle  their  public  accounts  ;  they  beg 
money  for  one  object  and  use  it  for  another  ;  they 
seldom  acknowledge  what  they  receive  by  post  ; 
and  they  have  absolutely  no  notion  of  cutting 
their  coat  according  to  their  cloth.      "  Spend  and 


96  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

beg,  and  the  money  will  come  from  somewhere  " 
is  their  simple  and  sufficient  creed. 

3.  The  Clergy  are  not  taught  business.  They 
have  not  the  faintest  notion  of  conducting  a  public 
meeting.  They  lose  their  way  in  the  agenda-paper 
of  the  most  insignificant  committee.  They  break 
appointments  at  their  will  and  pleasure.  They 
seldom  answer  letters,  and  are  frankly  astonished 
when  their  correspondents  are  annoyed. 

4.  The  Clergy  are  not  taught  the  Science  of 
Citizenship.  Outside  their  strictly  professional 
studies  (and,  in  some  cases,  the  records  of  athleti- 
cism) they  are  the  most  ignorant  set  of  young 
men  in  the  world.  They  work  hard  and  play 
hard,  but  they  never  read.  They  know  nothing 
of  books,  nothing  of  history,  nothing  of  the  Con- 
stitution under  which  they  live,  of  the  principles 
and  records  of  political  parties,  of  the  need  for 
social  reform  or  the  means  of  securing  it.  They 
have  a  vague  but  clinging  notion  that  Radicals  are 
Infidels,  and  that  Dissenters,  if  they  got  their 
deserts,  would  have  their  heads  punched. 

Sixty  years  ago  an  Italian  critic  said  that,  in 
spite  of  all  their  defects,  the  English  clergy  were 
"  Un  clero  colto  e  civile."  Could  as  much  be  said 
to-day  ? 


XIV 

PILGRIMAGES 

I  USE  the  word  in  something  wider  than  Chaucer's 
sense,  and  yet  in  a  sense  not  wholly  different  from 
his.  For,  though  we  no  longer  make  an  annual 
visit  to  the  Shrine  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury, 
still  we  all  feel  bound,  at  least  once  a  year,  to  go 
somewhere  and  do  something  quite  out  of  our 
normal  course.  Perhaps,  like  Chaucer's  friends, 
we  "long"  to  do  this  in  April,  but  the  claims  of 
business  are  generally  too  strong  for  us  ;  so  we 
have  to  content  ourselves  with  admiring  the  peeps 
of  greenery  which  begin  to  invade  the  soot  of 
our  urban  gardens,  and,  if  we  are  of  a  cultured 
habit,  we  can  always  quote  Browning's  Thrush  or 
strain  the  kalendar  so  as  to  admit  Wordsworth's 
Daffodils. 

This  notion  of  a  yearly  Pilgrimage  as  a  necessity 
of  rightly-ordered  life  seems  to  have  fallen  into 
a  long  abeyance.  "Dan  Chaucer"  (for  I  love  to 
be  on  easy  terms  with  great  men)  described  the 
social  customs  of  the  fourteenth  century,  and  then 
the  Pilgrimage  seems  to  have  been  an  established 
institution:    "Tom    Hughes"   described   those    of 

97  G 


98  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

the  eighteenth,  and  this  is  what,  writing  in  1862, 
he  says  about  the  annual  Pilgrimages  of  his  own 
time  : — 

"  I  have  been  credibly  informed,  and  am  inclined 
to  believe,  that  the  various  Boards  of  Directors  of 
Railway  Companies  agreed  together  some  ten  years 
back  to  buy  up  the  learned  profession  of  Medicine, 
body  and  soul.  To  this  end  they  set  apart  several 
millions  of  money,  which  they  continually  distri- 
bute judiciously  among  the  Doctors,  stipulating 
only  this  one  thing — that  they  shall  prescribe 
change  of  air  to  every  patieift  who  can  pay,  or 
borrow  money  to  pay,  a  railway  fare,  and  see 
their  prescription  carried  out.  If  it  be  not  for 
this,  why  is  it  that  none  of  us  can  be  well  at 
home  for  a  year  together  ?  It  wasn't  so  twenty 
years  ago — not  a  bit  of  it.  The  Browns  did  not 
go  out  of  the  county  once  in  five  years." 

The  Browns,  as  we  all  know,  stood  in  Mr. 
Hughes's  vocabulary  for  the  Upper  Middle  Class 
of  England — the  class  to  which  the  clergy,  the 
smaller  squires,  and  the  professional  men  belong ; 
the  class  which  in  Chaucer's  time  contained  the 
"  Man  of  Lawe,"  the  "  Marchande,"  the  "  Frank- 
lyne,"  and  the  "  Doctore  of  Phisyke "  ;  and, 
although  Mr.  Hughes,  who  ought  to  know,  says 
that  in  the  earlier  part  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign 
they  were  a  stay-at-home  class,  they  are  now  the 
most  regular  and  the  most  zealous  of  Pilgrims. 
It  was   the  majestic   misfortune   of  the   Duke   in 


PILGRIMAGES  99 

u  Lothair "  to  have  so  many  houses  that  he  had 
no  home.  People  so  circumstanced  do  not  need 
to  go  on  Pilgrimages.  After  the  autumn  in  a 
Scotch  Castle,  the  winter  in  a  country  house  in  the 
Midlands,  the  spring  in  another  in  the  Southern 
Counties,  and  the  season  in  Grosvenor  Square, 
people  are  glad  of  a  little  rest,  and  seek  it  in 
some  "  proud  alcove  "  on  the  Thames  or  a  sea-girt 
villa  at  Cowes.  Unless  their  livers  drive  them 
to  Carlsbad  or  their  hearts  to  Nauheim,  they  do 
not  travel,  but  display  what  Lord  Beaconsfield 
called  "  the  sustained  splendour  of  their  stately 
lives  "  in  the  many  mansions  which,  in  the  aggre- 
gate, represent  to  them  the  idea  of  Home.  I 
might  perhaps  on  another  occasion  sketch  the 
Grand  Tour  of  Europe,  on  which,  for  educational 
purposes,  the  Earl  of  Fitzurse  used  to  send  his 
eldest  son,  young  Lord  Cubley  ;  compressed,  with 
his  tutor  and  doctor,  into  a  travelling-carriage, 
with  a  valet  and  a  courier  in  the  rumble.  The 
Duke  of  Argyll's  Autobiography  has  just  told  us 
what  this  kind  of  Pilgrimage  was  like  ;  but  to-day 
I  am  dealing  with  the  present  rather  than  the  past. 
It  is  the  people  with  one  house  who  go  on 
Pilgrimages  nowadays — the  impoverished  squire, 
the  smoke-dried  clergyman,  the  exhausted  mer- 
chant, the  harried  editor.  To  these  must  be  added 
all  the  inhabitants,  male  and  female,  of  Lodging- 
land  and  Flat-land, — all  "  the  dim,  common 
populations "   of  Stuccovia  and  Suburbia.     There 


^T 


ioo  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

are  mysterious  laws  of  association  which  connect 
classes  with  localities.  Tradesmen  love  Margate  ; 
to  clerks  Scarborough  is  dear.  The  Semitic 
financier  has  long  claimed  Brighton  for  his  own. 
Costermongers  go  hop-picking  in  Kent  ;  artizans 
disport  themselves  on  the  nigger-haunted  pier  of 
Southend.  Governed  by  some  mysterious  law  of 
their  being,  schoolmasters  make  straight  for  the 
Alps.  There  they  live  the  strenuous  life  and  brave 
the  perilous  ascent ;  climb  and  puff  and  pant  all 
day ;  rush  in,  very  untidy  and  not  very  clean,  to 
table  d'hote  ;  and  season  their  meal  with  the  "  shop  " 
of  St.  Winifred's  or  the  gay  banter  of  Rosslyn 
Common-room.  It  is  agreeable  to  watch  the 
forced  cordiality,  the  thin  tutorial  humour,  with 
which  they  greet  some  quite  irresponsive  pupil 
who  happens  to  have  strayed  into  the  same  hotel  ; 
and  I  have  often  had  occasion  to  admire  the  pre- 
cocious dexterity  with  which  the  pupil  extricates 
himself  from  this  dreaded  companionship.  Of 
Mr.  Gladstone  it  was  said  by  his  detractors  that  he 
had  something  of  the  Schoolmaster  in  his  com- 
position ;  and  this  trait  was  aptly  illustrated  when, 
during  the  summer  holidays  some  fifty  years  ago, 
he  met  the  late  Duchess  of  Abercorn  in  a  country 
house  accompanied  by  her  schoolboy  son,  Lord 
George  Hamilton.  Not  many  mornings  had 
elapsed  before  Mr.  Gladstone  said  to  the  boy's 
mother,  "  Duchess,  don't  you  think  it  a  pity  that 
your  son  should  spend  his  holidays  in  entire  idle- 


PILGRIMAGES  101 

ness  ?  I  should  be  happy  to  give  him  an  hour's 
Homer  every  morning."  The  offer  was  accepted, 
and  the  foundation  of  Lord  George's  lifelong 
hostility  to  the  Liberal  leader  was  securely  laid. 
It  is  the  nervous  dread  of  some  such  awful  possi- 
bility which  supplies  wings  to  the  boy's  feet  and 
lies  to  his  tongue  when  he  encounters  Dr.  Grim- 
stone  or  Basil  Warde  in  a  Swiss  hotel. 

While  the  Schoolmaster  limits  his  aspirations  to 
the  Alps,  the  Oxford  or  Cambridge  Don,  having  a 
longer  vacation  at  his  command,  takes  a  more 
extended  view,  and  urges  his  adventurous  Pilgrim- 
age along  roads  less  trite.  A  few  years  ago  an 
Oxford  Don  resolved  to  strike  out  what  was  then  a 
quite  new  line,  and  spend  his  Long  Vacation  in 
Portugal.  Conscious  of  insufficient  acquaintance 
with  the  Portuguese  language,  he  repaired  to  Mr. 
Parker's  excellent  shop  in  the  Turl  and  enquired 
for  a  Portuguese  Phrase-book.  After  some  re- 
search, that  never-failing  bookseller  produced  "  The 
New  Guide  of  the  Conversation  in  Portuguese  and 
English."  The  book  had  an  instant  and  a  deserved 
success.  The  preface  sets  forth  that  "  a  choice  of 
familiar  dialogues,  clean  of  gallicisms  and  despoiled 
phrases,  it  was  missing  yet  to  studious  Portuguese 
and  Brazilian  youth  ;  and  also  to  persons  of  other 
nations  that  wish  to  know  the  Portuguese  lan- 
guage." To  supply  this  felt  want  Pedro  Carolino 
compiled  his  hand-book  for  "  the  acceptation  of 
the  studious  persons,  and  especially  of  the  Youth, 


102  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

at  which  we  dedicate  him  particularly."  Among 
those  studious  persons  was  our  Pilgrim-Don,  who 
naturally  turned  in  the  first  instance  to  a  dialogue 
headed 

"FOR   TO  TRAVEL 

When  do  you  start  ? 

As  soon  as  I  shall  have  to  finish  a  business  at 
Cadiz. 

Have  you  already  arrested  a  coach  ? 

Yes,  sir,  and  very  cheap. 

Have  you  great  deal  of  effects  ? 

Two  trunks  and  one  portmanteau. 

You  may  prepare  all  for  to-morrow.  We  shall 
start  at  the  coolness. 

The  way,  is  it  good  ? 

Very  good. 

At  which  inn  shall  stop  us  ? 

In  that  of  the  Sun,  it  is  the  best.  The  account 
mount  is  little.  The  supper,  the  bed,  and  the 
breakfast  shall  get  up  at  thirty  franks. 

That  seems  to  me  a  little  dear." 

The  next  dialogue  follows  in  the  natural 
order : — 

"FOR   TO   BREAKFAST 

John,  bring  us  some  thing  for  to  breakfast. 
Yes,  sir  ;  there  is  some  sausages  and  some  meat 
pies.     Will  you  that  I  bring  the  ham  ? 


PILGRIMAGES  103 

Yes,  bring  him,  we  will  cut  a  steak. 

Put  an  nappe  cloth  upon  this  table. 

Give  us  some  plates,  any  knifes,  and  some 
forks,  rinse  the  glasses. 

I  have  eaten  with  satisfaction  some  pudding, 
sausages,  and  some  ham.      I  shall  take  some  tea. 

Still  a  not  her  cup  ? 

I  thank  you  it  is  enough." 

Breakfast  over,  the  traveller  engages  a  guide 
and  starts  out 

"FOR  TO  SEE   THE   TOWN 

We  won't  to  see  all  that  is  it  remarquable  here. 

Come  with  me,  if  you  please.  I  shall  not  folget 
nothing  what  can  to  merit  your  attention.  Here 
we  are  near  to  cathedraly.  Will  you  come  in 
there  ? 

We  will  first  go  to  see  him  in  oudside,  after  we 
shall  go  in  there  for  to  look  the  interior." 

A  day  of  sight-seeing  concludes  happily  with 
the  ever-welcome  dialogue — 

"FOR  TO   DINE 

Give  us  a  rice  soup. 
What  wine  do  you  like  best  ? 
Bourgogne  wine. 

Give  us  some  beef  and  potatoes,  a  beefsteak  to 
the  English. 


I04  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

What  you  shall  take  for  dessert  ? 
Give  us  some  Hollande  cheese  and  some  prunes. 
I  will  take  a  glass  of  brandy  at  the  cherries. 
Gentlemen,  don't  forget  the  waiter." 

Parsimony  is  a  bond  which  makes  the  whole 
world  kin,  and  it  is  interesting  to  find  em- 
bedded in  182  closely-printed  pages  of  "despoiled 
phrases "  two  such  characteristic  specimens  of 
sound  English  as  "  That  seems  to  me  a  little  dear  " 
and  "  Don't  forget  the  waiter." 


XV 

THE    PUBLIC    SCHOOLS 

"  Gentlemen,"  said  Dr.  Blimber  to  his  pupils  on 
the  eve  of  the  holidays,  "  we  will  resume  our 
studies  on  the  twenty-fifth  of  next  month."  But 
that  adjournment,  I  think,  was  for  Christmas,  and 
we  are  now  in  what  Matthew  Arnold's  delicious 
schoolboy  called  "the  glad  season  of  sun  and 
flowers."  Very  soon,  in  Dr.  Farrar's  romantic 
phrase,  "  the  young  life  which  usually  plays  like 
the  sunshine  over  St.  Winifred's  will  be  pouring 
unwonted  brightness  into  many  happy  English 
homes."  Or,  to  take  Mr.  Snawley's  darker  view 
of  the  same  event,  we  shall  be  in  the  thick  of  one 
of  "those  ill-judged  comings  home  twice  a  year 
that  unsettle  children's  minds  so." 

The  associations  of  the  moment,  so  different  in 
their  effects  on  different  natures,  have  awoke  the 
spirit  of  prophecy  in  the  late  Head  Master  of 
Eton,  Dr.  Warre,  who,  projecting  his  soul  into 
futurity,  sees  dark  days  coming  for  the  "  Public 
Schools  "  as  that  phrase  has  been  hitherto  under- 
stood. It  was  clear,  said  Dr.  Warre,  after  distri- 
buting  the  prizes  at  Shrewsbury,  "  that  ere  long 

105 


106  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

the  Public  Schools  would  have  to  justify  not 
only  their  curriculum,  but,  it  might  be,  their  very 
existence.  The  spirit  of  the  age  seemed  to  be 
inclined  towards  Utilitarianism,  and  it  was  now 
tending  to  undervalue  the  humanities  and  the 
culture  that  attended  them,  and  to  demand  what 
it  appreciated  as  a  useful  and  practical  training — 
i.e.  something  capable  of  making  boys  bread- 
winners as  soon  as  they  left  school.  He  did  not 
say  that  view  would  ultimately  prevail,  but  the 
trend  of  public  opinion  in  that  direction  would 
necessitate  on  the  part  of  Public  Schools  a  period 
of  self-criticism,  and  very  probably  a  reorganiza- 
tion of  curricula.  But  there  was  another  problem 
to  be  faced  which  would  become  more  serious  as 
the  century  waxed  older,  and  that  was  a  new 
phase  of  competition.  As  secondary  education 
expanded,  secondary  day-schools  would  be  pro- 
vided regardless  of  expense,  and  it  was  idle  to 
think  this  would  have  no  effect  upon  great  Public 
Schools.  What  would  be  weighed  in  the  balance, 
however,  was  the  value  of  the  corporate  life  and 
aggregate  influence  of  the  Public  Schools  upon 
the  formation  of  character." 

When  ex-Head  Masters  begin  to  see  visions 
and  Old  Etonians  to  dream  dreams,  the  ordinary 
citizen,  with  his  traditional  belief  in  the  virtue 
and  permanence  of  Public  Schools,  must  rub  his 
eyes  in  astonishment.  What  is  going  to  happen 
next  ?     Is  Eton  to  abandon  u  taste  "  and  take  to 


THE    PUBLIC    SCHOOLS  107 

"  useful  knowledge "  ?  Is  Harrow  to  close  its 
Boarding  Houses  and  become  a  village  Day  School 
once  more  ?  Are  Wykeham's  "  seventy  faithful 
boys  "  (as  the  late  Lord  Selborne  called  them  in 
his  first  attempt  at  verse)  no  longer  to  u  tund  "  or 
be  a  funded  "  ?  Is  Westminster  to  forswear  its 
Latin  Play,  and  replace  the  u  Phormio  "  and  the 
"  Trinummus  "  with  "  Box  and  Cox  "  and  "  Ici  on 
Parle  Francais  "  ? 

These  enquiries,  and  others  like  them,  are  forced 
on  our  attention  by  such  subversive  discourse  as 
Dr.  Warre's  ;  and  that  incursion  of  rampant  boy- 
hood which  begins  with  the  beginning  of  August 
reinforces  the  eloquence  of  the  ex-Head  Master. 
The  Retreat  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  which  used  to 
worry  us  in  our  youth,  was  not  half  so  formidable 
an  affair  as  the  Advance  of  the  Ten  Thousand, 
schoolboys  though  they  be,  who  just  now  overrun 
the  land.  There  they  are,  an  army  ever  increas- 
ing in  numbers  and  maintained  at  an  immense 
expense.  Whatever  commercial  and  agricultural 
depression  may  have  effected  in  other  quarters, 
it  did  not  touch  the  schools  of  England.  The 
greater  schools  are  full  to  overflowing  ;  provincial 
schools  have  doubled  and  trebled  their  numbers  ; 
and  every  Elizabethan  and  Edwardian  founda- 
tion in  the  Kingdom  has  woke  from  slumber 
and  celebrated  at  least  a  Tercentenary.  And  all 
this  is  not  done  for  nothing.  Private  school- 
masters   take    shootings    in    Scotland  ;    the    pro- 


108  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

prietors  of  Boarding-houses  at  the  Public  Schools 
buy  villas  in  the  Riviera,  and  build  pineries  and 
vineries  at  home ;  meanwhile  the  British  Parent 
eyes  his  diminishing  income  and  his  increasing 
rates,  and  asks  himself,  in  the  secrecy  of  his  own 
heart,  what  Tommy  is  really  getting  in  return  for 
the  £200  a  year  expended  on  his  education.  The 
answer  takes  various  forms.  Perhaps  Tommy  is 
following  the  "  grand,  old  fortifying  classical  cur- 
riculum "  which  sufficed  for  Lord  Lumpington, 
and  enabled  the  Rev.  Esau  Hittall  to  compose  his 
celebrated  "  Longs  and  Shorts  on  the  Calydonian 
Boar."  In  this  case  the  parent  says,  with  Rawdon 
Crawley,  "  Stick  to  it,  my  boy  ;  there's  nothing 
like  a  good  classical  education — nothing,"  but  he 
generally  is  too  diffident  about  his  own  accom- 
plishments to  subject  his  sons  to  a  very  searching 
test.  Perhaps  one  boy  in  a  hundred  learns 
enough  Latin  and  Greek  at  school  to  fit  him  for 
a  good  place  in  the  Classical  Tripos  or  a  "  First 
in  Mods."  This,  if  he  is  meant  to  be  a  school- 
master, is  a  definite  and  tangible  result  from  his 
father's  investment  ;  if  he  is  intended  for  any 
other  profession  the  advantage  is  not  so  clear. 
If  he  is  to  be  a  Soldier,  no  doubt  there  is  the 
11  Army  Class "  or  the  "  Modern  School,"  where, 
indeed,  he  is  exempted  from  Greek,  is  taught  some 
mathematics,  and  acquires  some  very  English 
French  and  German  ;  but,  in  spite  of  these  privi- 
leges, he  generally  requires  a  year's  residence  at  a 


THE    PUBLIC    SCHOOLS  109 

crammer's  before  he  has  a  chance  for  Sandhurst. 
For  the  ordinary  life  of  the  Professions  the  Public 
School  makes  no  preparation  whatever.  Tommy 
may  have  acquired  "  taste,"  but  he  is  no  more 
qualified  to  be,  as  Dr.  Warre  says,  a  "  bread- 
winner" than  he  was  the  day  he  began  school- 
life. 

Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  delightful  essay  on  "  An 
Eton  Boy,"  says,  with  regard  to  that  boy's  prowess 
as  Master  of  the  Beagles  : — 

"The  aged  Barbarian  will,  upon  this,  admir- 
ingly mumble  to  us  his  story  how  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo  was  won  in  the  Playing  Fields  of  Eton. 
Alas  !  disasters  have  been  prepared  in  those  Play- 
ing Fields  as  well  as  victories — disasters  due  to  an 
inadequate  mental  training,  to  want  of  application, 
knowledge,  intelligence,  lucidity." 

With  "  taste  "  we  commonly  hear  "  tone  "  com- 
bined in  the  eulogies  of  Public  Schools.  The 
Parent,  who  knows  (though  he  would  not  for  the 
world  admit)  that  Tommy  has  learnt  nothing  at 
St.  Winifred's  or  Rosslyn  which  will  ever  enable 
him  to  earn  a  penny,  falls  back  upon  the  impalpable 
consolation  that  there  is  "  a  very  nice  tone  about 
the  school."  Certainly  Eton  imparts  manners  to 
those  who  have  not  acquired  them  at  home,  and 
in  this  respect  Radley  is  like  unto  it.  But,  taking 
the  Public  Schools  as  a  whole,  it  can  scarcely  be 
denied  that,  however  faithfully  they  cultivate  the 
ingenuous  arts,  they  suffer  Youth  to  be  extremely 


no  SEEING   AND    HEARING 

brutal.  If  this  be  urged,  the  Parent  will  shift  his 
ground  and  say,  "  Well,  I  like  boys  to  be  natural. 
I  don't  wish  my  son  to  be  a  Lord  Chesterfield. 
Character  is  everything.  It  is  the  religious  and 
moral  influence  of  a  Public  School  that  I  think  so 
valuable."  As  to  the  Religion  taught  in  Public 
Schools,  it  is,  as  Mr.  T.  E.  Page  of  Charterhouse 
recently  said  with  artless  candour,  exactly  the 
same  commodity  as  will  probably  be  offered  by 
the  County  Councils  when  the  Education  Bill  has 
become  law  ;  and  it  is  worth  noting  that,  though 
Bishops  shrink  with  horror  at  the  prospect  of  this 
religion  being  offered  to  the  poor,  they  are  per- 
fectly content  that  it  should  be  crammed  down 
the  throats  of  their  own  sons.  As  to  the  morality 
acquired  at  Public  Schools,  a  clergyman  who  was 
successively  an  Eton  boy  and  an  Eton  master 
wrote  twenty-five  years  ago  :  "  The  masters  of  many 
schools  are  sitting  on  a  volcano,  which,  when  it 
explodes,  will  fill  with  horror  and  alarm  those  who 
do  not  know  what  boys'  schools  are,  or  knowing 
it,  shut  their  eyes  and  stop  their  ears."  It  must  be 
admitted  that  the  British  Parent,  dwelling  on  the 
slopes  of  that  volcano,  regards  its  chronic  menace 
and  its  periodical  activities  with  the  most  singular 
composure. 

In  years  gone  by  Harrow,  like  most  other  places 
where  there  was  a  Public  School  accessible  to  day 
boys,  was  a  favourite  resort  of  widowed  ladies 
whose  husbands  had  served  in  the  Indian  Army 


THE    PUBLIC    SCHOOLS  in 

or  Civil  Service.  These  "  Indian  Widows,"  as  he 
called  them,  so  pestered  Dr.  Vaughan,  then  Head 
Master,  that  he  said  in  the  bitterness  of  his  soul : 
"  Before  I  came  to  Harrow  I  thought  '  Suttee '  an 
abomination  ;  but  now  I  see  that  there  is  a  great 
deal  to  be  said  for  it."  It  is  easy  enough  to  see 
why  Head  Masters  dislike  the  Home  Boarding 
system.  It  defeats  the  curious  policy  by  which 
assistant  masters  pay  themselves  out  of  their 
boarders'  stomachs,  and  it  brings  all  the  arrange- 
ments of  teaching  and  discipline  under  the  survey, 
and  perhaps  criticism,  of  the  parents  ;  but,  in  spite 
of  magisterial  objections,  the  Home  Boarding  sys- 
tem is  probably  the  only  and  certainly  the  most 
efficacious  method  of  coping  with  those  moral 
evils  which  all  schoolmasters  not  wilfully  blind 
acknowledge,  and  which  the  best  of  them  strenu- 
ously combat.  In  that  extension  of  Day  Schools 
which  Dr.  Warre  foresees  lies  the  best  hope  of  a 
higher  tone  in  public  education. 

The  British  Parent  knows  the  weaknesses  of  the 
Public  School  system.  He  knows  that  he  gets  a 
very  doubtful  return  for  his  money — that  his  son 
learns  nothing  useful  and  very  little  that  is  orna- 
mental ;  is  unsuitably  fed,  and,  when  ill,  insuffi- 
ciently attended  ;  exposed  to  moral  risks  of  a  very 
grave  type  ;  and  withdrawn  at  the  most  impressible 
season  of  life  from  the  sanctifying  influences  of 
Motherhood  and  Home.  He  knows  all  this,  and, 
knowing  it,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred 


V 


112 


SEEING    AND    HEARING 


he  sends  all  his  boys  to  a  Public  School.  Why  ? 
Partly  because  every  one  goes  to  a  Public  School 
and  he  has  no  wish  to  be  eccentric  or  faddish  ; 
partly  because  the  boys  are  tiresome  at  home  and 
he  wants  peace  ;  partly  because,  in  existing  con- 
ditions, he  does  not  know  how  to  get  them  edu- 
cated while  they  are  under  his  roof.  But  the 
strongest  reason  is  none  of  these.  He  sends  his 
sons  to  Eton  or  Harrow  because  he  was  there 
himself,  has  felt  the  glamour  and  learnt  the  spell  ; 
because  some  of  his  happiest  memories  hover 
round  the  Playing  Fields  or  the  Hill  ;  because 
there  he  first  knew  what  Friendship  meant  and 
first  tasted  the  Romance  of  Life. 

"  I  may  have  failed,  my  School  may  fail ; 
I  tremble,  but  thus  much  I  dare  : 
I  love  her.     Let  the  critics  rail, 

My  brethren  and  my  home  are  there." 


XVI 

SCHOOLS  AND   BOARDING-HOUSES 

"  Any  two  meals  at  a  Boarding-House  are  to- 
gether less  than  one  square  meal."  This  pleasing 
postulate  was,  I  believe,  in  the  first  instance 
evolved  from  the  bitter  experience  of  a  hungry 
mathematician  who,  at  this  season  of  the  year, 
sought  change  of  air  and  scene  at  Margate  or 
Heme  Bay.  But  to-day  I  use  the  word  "  Board- 
ing-House" in  that  more  restricted  sense  which 
signifies  a  Master's  house  for  the  accommodation 
of  boys  at  a  Public  School.  My  reason  for  dis- 
cussing the  subject  is  that  a  stray  sentence  in 
my  last  chapter,  about  the  profits  derived  from 
such  Boarding-Houses,  caused  dire  offence.  I 
am  the  most  docile  creature  alive,  and  the  re- 
bukes which  I  have  incurred  caused  me,  as  the 
French  say,  to  make  a  return  upon  myself.  I 
subjected  my  conscience  to  severe  cross-examina- 
tion. I  asked  whether  what  I  had  written  was 
wholly  or  even  approximately  true,  or  entirely 
false  ;  and  whether,  if  true,  it  was  offensive  or 
indelicate.  Here  is  the  sentence  in  all  its  un- 
glossed  brutality:  "The  proprietors  of  Boarding- 

"3  H 


ii4  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Houses  at  the  Public  Schools  buy  villas  in  the 
Riviera  and  build  pineries  and  vineries  at  home." 
Now,  of  course,  a  Schoolmaster  is  nothing  if  not 
critical,  and,  in  superintending  the  studies  of  his 
young  friends,  he  rightly  insists  on  the  most 
scrupulous  accuracy  of  phrase  and  figure.  Not 
for  the  construing  boy  is  the  plea,  dear  to  Biblical 
critics,  that  "  the  wider  divergence  is  the  higher 
unity."  The  calculating  boy  must  not,  if  he 
values  his  peace,  mistake  inference  for  demonstra- 
tion. Woe  betide  the  excuse-making  boy  if  he 
protests  that  he  has  spent  an  hour  over  his  lesson 
when  his  tutor  can  show  that  he  could  only  have 
spent  fifty-five  minutes.  This  Chinese  exactness 
is  all  very  well  in  the  schoolroom,  but  tends  to 
become  a  bore  in  the  intercourse  of  social  life. 
An  Assistant  Master,  stung  into  activity  by  my 
recent  strictures  on  Public  Schools,  has  swooped 
down  upon  me  with  all  the  fierce  alacrity  which 
he  would  display  in  detecting  a  false  quantity  or 
an  erroneous  deduction.  "Villas  in  the  Riviera! 
Who  buys  Villas  in  the  Riviera  ?  Give,  name, 
date,  and  place  by  return  of  post,  or — write  out 
five  hundred  lines."  "  What  do  you  mean  by 
Pineries  and  Vineries  ?  I  and  my  colleagues  at 
St.  Winifred's  only  grow  cucumbers  ;  and  the 
Composition-Master,  though  he  has  large  private 
means,  gets  his  grapes  from  the  Stores.  Retract 
and  apologize,  or  be  for  ever  fallen." 

Now  really,  when  I  read  all  this  virtuous  indig- 


wmw. 


SCHOOLS    AND    BOARDING-HOUSES      115 

nation,  I  am  irresistibly  reminded  of  the  Bishop  in 
"  Little  Dorrit,"  who,  when  all  the  guests  were  ex- 
tolling Mr.  Merdle's  wealth,  spoke  pensively  about 
"  the  goods  of  this  world,"  and  u  tried  to  look  as 
if  he  were  rather  poor  himself."  In  vain  I  pro- 
tested that  I  meant  no  injurious  allusion  to  Monte 
Carlo,  and  proposed  to  substitute  "  Mansions  in 
the  Isle  of  Wight"  for  "Villas  in  the  Riviera." 
The  substitution  availed  me  nothing.  "  You  say 
'  Mansions.'  Do  you  really  know  more  than  one  ? 
And  how  do  you  know  that  the  schoolmaster  who 
bought  it  did  not  marry  a  wife  with  a  fortune  ? 
You  cannot  investigate  his  marriage  settlements, 
so  your  illustration  counts  for  nothing."  In  the 
same  conciliatory  spirit,  I  urged  that  "  Pineries  and 
Vineries"  was  a  picturesque  phrase  invented  by 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  to  describe  the  amenities 
of  a  comfortable  country  house,  not  of  the  largest 
order  ;  but  my  pedagogue  was  not  to  be  pacified. 
"  If  you  didn't  mean  Pineries  and  Vineries,  you 
shouldn't  have  said  so.  It  creates  a  bad  impres- 
sion in  the  parents'  minds.  Of  course  no  reason- 
able person  could  object  to  one's  having  gardens, 
or  stabling,  or  a  moderate  shooting,  or  a  share  of 
a  salmon  river  ;  but  parents  don't  like  the  notion 
that  we  are  living  in  luxury.  They  have  a  nasty 
way  of  contrasting  it  with  the  nonsense  which 
their  boys  tell  them  about  tough  meat  and  rancid 
butter." 

At  this  point  I  began  to  see  some  resemblance 


n6  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

between  my  correspondent  and  Matthew  Arnold's 
critic  in  the  Quarterly  of  October  1868 — "one 
of  the  Eton  Under-Masters,  who,  like  Demetrius 
the  Silversmith,  seems  alarmed  for  the  gains  of  his 
occupation."  For,  in  spite  of  all  corrections  and 
deductions,  I  cannot  help  regarding  Public  School- 
masters as  a  well-paid  race.  Of  course,  it  is  true 
that  their  incomes  are  not  comparable  to  those  of 
successful  barristers  or  surgeons,  or  even  Ministers 
of  State  ;  but,  on  the  other  side,  their  work  is 
infinitely  easier  ;  their  earnings  begin  from  the 
day  on  which  they  embark  on  their  profession  ; 
and  no  revolution  of  the  wheel  of  State  can  shake 
them  from  their  well-cushioned  seats.  I  am  quite 
willing  to  admit  that,  on  the  figures  supplied  by 
my  correspondent,  he  and  his  colleagues  at  St. 
Winifred's  are  not  making  so  much  money  as  their 
predecessors  made  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago. 
But,  as  far  as  I  can  understand,  this  diminution  of 
incomes  does  not  arise  from  diminution  of  charges, 
but  only  from  the  fact  that  the  force  of  public 
opinion  has  driven  schoolmasters  to  recognize, 
rather  more  fully  than  in  days  gone  by,  some 
primary  needs  of  boy-nature.  When  the  Royal 
Commission  of  1862  was  enquiring  into  the  board- 
ing arrangements  of  a  famous  school,  one  of  the 
Commissioners  was  astonished  to  find  that,  in  spite 
of  the  liberal  charge  for  board,  the  boys  got 
nothing  but  tea  and  bread  and  butter  for  breakfast. 
Apparently  wishing  to  let  the  masters  down  easy, 


SCHOOLS    AND    BOARDING-HOUSES      117 

he  suggested  that  perhaps  eggs  also  were  provided. 
To  this  suggestion  the  witness's  answer  was  monu- 
mental :  «  Eggs,  indeed,  are  not  provided,  but  in 
some  houses  a  large  machine  for  boiling  eggs  is 
brought  in  every  day ;  so  that,  if  the  boys  bring 
their  eggs,  they  are  boiled  for  them."  Surely  the 
Master  who  first  conceived  this  substitution  of  hard- 
ware for  food  deserved  a  permanent  place  among 
Social  Economists  ;  but  "  the  bigots  of  this  iron 
time,"  though  they  may  not  actually  «  have  called 
his  harmless  art  a  crime,"  have  resolved  that, 
when  a  father  pays  ^200  a  year  for  his  boy's 
schooling,  the  boy  shall  have  something  more 
substantial  than  bread  and  butter  for  breakfast. 
This  reform  alone,  according  to  my  correspondent, 
knocked  some  hundreds  a  year  off  each  House- 
Master's  income. 

Then,  again,  as  regards  Sanitation.  Here, 
certainly  not  before  it  was  wanted,  reform  has 
made  its  appearance,  and  the  injured  House- 
Master  has  had  to  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket. 
When  I  was  at  a  Public  School,  in  that  Golden 
Age  of  Profits  to  which  my  correspondent  looked 
back  so  wistfully,  the  sanitary  arrangements  were 
such  as  to  defy  description  and  stagger  belief. 
In  one  Pupil-Room  there  was  only  the  thickness 
of  the  boarded  floor  between  the  cesspool  and 
the  feet  of  the  boys  as  they  sat  at  lessons.  In 
my  own  house,  containing  forty  boarders,  there 
were  only  two  baths.     In  another,  three  and  even 


1 


n8  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

four  boys  were  cooped  together,  by  day  as  well 
as  by  night,  in  what  would,  in  an  ordinary  house, 
be  regarded  as  a  smallish  bedroom.  Now  all 
this  is  changed.  Drainage  is  reconstructed  ;  baths 
are  multiplied  ;  to  each  boy  is  secured  a  sufficient 
air-space  at  lessons  and  in  sleep.  The  Sanitary 
Engineer  is  let  loose  every  term — 

"  What  pipes  and  air-shafts  !     What  wild  ecstasy !  " 

But  the  "  ecstasy  "  is  confined  to  the  bosom  of  the 
Engineer  as  he  draws  up  his  little  account,  and  the 
House-Master  moans,  like  Mr.  Mantalini,  over  the 
"  Demnition  Total." 

Yet  another  such  deduction  must  be  borne  in 
mind.  Volumes  of  nonsense  have  been  written 
about  the  Fagging  System.  Sentimental  writers 
have  gushed  over  the  beautiful  relation  which  it 
establishes  between  Fag-Master  and  Fag.  Some, 
greatly  daring,  have  likened  it  to  the  relation 
of  elder  and  younger  brothers.  Others,  more 
historically  minded,  have  tried  to  connect  it  with 
the  usages  of  Chivalry  and  the  services  rendered 
by  the  Page  to  the  Knight.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  was,  as  "Jacob  Omnium,"  himself  an  Old 
Etonian,  pointed  out  fifty  years  ago,  "  an  affair  of 
the  breeches  pocket."  As  long  as  younger  boys 
could  be  compelled  (by  whatever  methods)  to 
clean  lamps  and  brush  clothes  and  toast  sausages 
and  fill  tubs  for  elder  boys  it  was  obvious  that 
fewer  servants  were  required.     One  of  the  most 


-  w 


SCHOOLS    AND    BOARDING-HOUSES      119 

brilliant  Etonians  now  living  has  said  that  "  to  see 
a  little  boy  performing,  with  infinite  pains  and 
hopeless  inadequacy,  the  functions  of  a  domestic 
servant,  might  have  moved  Democritus  to  tears 
and  Heraclitus  to  laughter."  That  Fagging  has 
its  uses,  more  especially  in  the  case  of  spoilt  boys 
brought  up  in  purse-proud  homes,  few  Public 
Schoolmen  will  deny  ;  but  the  British  Parent 
tends  increasingly  to  draw  a  distinction  between 
the  duties  of  a  fag  and  those  of  a  footman  ;  and 
the  wages-bill  becomes  an  increasingly  important 
item  in  the  House-Master's  expenditure. 

What,  then,  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter  ?  It  is,  as  I  have  repeatedly  said,  that 
a  Boarding-School,  whether  public  or  private,  is 
not  the  ideal  method  of  educating  boys  ;  but, 
pending  that  great  increase  of  Day-Schools  for  the 
sons  of  the  upper  classes  which  Dr.  Warre  fore- 
sees, it  is  the  only  method  practically  available  for 
the  great  majority  of  English  parents.  Whether 
the  instruction  imparted  in  the  Public  Schools  is 
or  is  not  worth  the  amount  which  it  costs  is  a 
matter  of  opinion  ;  and,  indeed,  as  long  as  the 
parent  (who,  after  all,  has  to  pay)  is  satisfied, 
no  one  else  need  trouble  himself  about  the  ques- 
tion. As  to  domestic  arrangements  and  provision 
for  health  and  comfort,  it  may  be  frankly  con- 
ceded that  the  Schoolboy  of  to-day  is  much  better 
off  than  his  father  or  even  his  elder  brother  was  ; 
and  that  the  improvements  in  his  lot  have  tended 


120 


SEEING    AND    HEARING 


to  diminish  the  profits  on  which  the  House-Master 
used  to  grow  rich. 


P.S. — Having  the  terrors  of  the  ferule  before 
my  eyes,  let  me  hasten  to  say,  with  all  possible 
explicitness,  that  in  my  account  of  my  correspon- 
dence with  the  outraged  Schoolmaster,  I  have 
aimed  at  giving  a  general  impression  rather  than  a 
verbal  transcript. 


riHM^Hi 


XVII 


SQUARES 

All  true  lovers  of  Lewis  Carroll  will  remember 

that    Hiawatha,   when   he    went    a-photographing, 

"  pulled  and  pushed  the  joints  and  hinges  "  of  his 

Camera, 

"  Till  it  looked  all  squares  and  oblongs, 
Like  a  complicated  figure 
In  the  Second  Book  of  Euclid." 

But  it  is  not  of  squares  in  the  mathematical  sense 
that  I  speak  to-day,  but  rather  of  those  enclosed 
spaces,  most  irregularly  shaped  and  proportioned, 
which  go  by  the  name  of  "  Squares  "  in  London. 

It  is  in  sultry  August  that  the  value  of  these 
spaces  is  most  clearly  perceived  ;  for  now  the 
better-disposed  owners  fling  open  the  gates  of 
their  squares  and  suffer  them  to  become,  at  least 
temporarily,  the  resting-places  of  the  aged  and 
decrepit,  and  the  playgrounds  of  the  children. 
To  extend  these  benefits  more  widely  and  to  secure 
them  in  perpetuity  are  objects  for  which  civic 
reformers  have  long  striven  ;  and  during  the 
present  session  of  Parliament 1  (for,  as  Dryasdust 
would   remind    us,    Parliament  is   not   prorogued 

1  August  1906. 


122  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

but  only  adjourned)  two  Acts  have  been  passed 
which  may  do  something  at  least  towards  attaining 
the  desired  ends.  One  of  these  Acts  provides 
that,  in  cases  where  "  Open  Spaces  and  Burial 
Grounds "  are  vested  in  Trustees,  the  Trustees 
may  transfer  them  to  the  Local  Authorities,  to  be 
maintained  for  the  use  and  service  of  the  public. 
The  other  forbids  for  all  time  the  erection  of 
buildings  on  certain  squares  and  gardens  which 
belong  to  private  owners,  those  owners  having 
consented  to  this  curtailment  of  their  powers. 
The  conjunction  of  "  Burial  Grounds  "  with  "  Open 
Spaces  "  in  the  purview  of  the  former  Act  has  a 
rather  lugubrious  sound  ;  but  in  reality  it  points 
to  one  of  the  happiest  changes  which  recent  years 
have  brought  to  London. 

u  A  hemmed-in  churchyard,  pestiferous  and  ob- 
scene, whence  malignant  diseases  are  communi- 
cated to  the  bodies  of  our  dear  brothers  and  sisters 
who  have  not  departed — here,  in  a  beastly  scrap 
of  ground  which  a  Turk  would  reject  as  a  savage 
abomination  and  a  Caffre  would  shudder  at,  they 
bring  '  our  dear  brother  here  departed  '  to  receive 
Christian  burial.  With  houses  looking  on,  on 
every  side,  save  where  a  reeking  little  tunnel  of  a 
court  gives  access  to  the  iron  gate — with  every 
villainy  of  life  in  action  close  on  death  and  every 
poisonous  element  of  death  in  action  close  on  life, 
— here  they  lower  our  dear  brother  down  a  foot 
or  two  ;  here  sow  him  in  corruption,  to  be  raised 


SQUARES  123 

in  corruption  ;  an  avenging  ghost  at  many  a  sick- 
beside  ;  a  shameful  testimony  to  future  ages  that 
civilization  and  barbarism  walked  this  boastful 
island  together." 

When  Dickens  wrote  that  hideous  description, 
worthy  to  be  illustrated  by  Hogarth  in  his  most 
realistic  mood,  he  did  not  exaggerate — he  could 
not  exaggerate — the  obscenity  of  burial-grounds 
in  crowded  cities.  To-day  they  are  green  with 
turf  and  bright  with  flowers,  and  brighter  still 
with  the  unconquerable  merriment  of  childhood  at 
play  among  the  dim  memorials  of  the  forgotten 
dead.  What  is  true  of  the  particular  spot  which 
Dickens  described  is  true  all  over  London  ;  and 
the  resting-places  of  the  departed  have  been  made 
oases  of  life  and  health  in  this  arid  wilderness  of 
struggling  and  stifled  humanity. 

Though  so  much  has  been  done  in  the  way 
of  making  the  Churchyards  available  for  public 
uses,  comparatively  little  has  been  done  with  the 
Squares ;  and  philosophers  of  the  school  erro- 
neously called  Cynical  might  account  for  this 
difference  by  the  fact  that,  whereas  the  church- 
yards were  generally  in  the  hands  of  official 
trustees,  such  as  Rectors,  Churchwardens,  Over- 
seers, or  Vestries,  the  principal  squares  of  London 
are  the  private  property  of  individual  owners. 
Even  the  London  Squares  and  Enclosures  Act, 
just  passed,  illustrates  the  same  principle.  The 
preamble  of  the  Act  sets  forth  that  in   respect  of 


124  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

every  Square  or  Enclosure  with  which  it  deals  the 
consent  of  the  owner  has  been  obtained.  In  each 
case,  therefore,  the  owner  has  consented  to  legisla- 
tion which  will  prevent  himself  or  his  successors 
from  building  on  what  are  now  open  spaces,  and, 
so  far,  each  owner  concerned  has  shown  himself 
a  patriotic  citizen  and  a  well-wisher  to  posterity. 
But,  when  we  come  to  examine  the  schedule  of 
properties  to  which  the  Act  applies,  it  is  interesting 
to  compare  the  number  belonging  to  private  per- 
sons with  the  number  belonging  to  public  bodies. 
The  Act  applies  to  sixty-four  properties  ;  of  these 
fifty-five  belong  to  public  bodies  such  as  District 
Councils,  Governors  of  Hospitals,  and  Ecclesiasti- 
cal Commissioners,  and  nine  to  private  persons, 
among  whom  it  is  pleasant  to  reckon  one  Liberal 
M.P.,  Sir  John  Dickson-Poynder,  and,  by  way  of 
balance,  one  Conservative  peer,  Lord  Camden. 

A  further  study  of  the  Schedule  reveals  the 
instructive  fact  that,  with  two  exceptions  in  the 
City  of  Westminster  and  one  in  the  Borough  of 
Kensington,  none  of  the  scheduled  properties  lie 
within  areas  which  could  by  any  stretch  of  terms 
be  called  wealthy,  fashionable,  or  aristocratic. 
Public  authorities  in  such  districts  as  Camberwell 
and  Lewisham — private  owners  in  Islington  and 
Woolwich — have  willingly  surrendered  their  rights 
for  the  benefit  of  the  community ;  but  none  of  the 
great  ground  landlords  have  followed  suit.  The 
owners  of  Belgrave  Square  and  Grosvenor  Square 


».-«*. 


SQUARES  125 

and  Portman  Square  and  Cavendish  Square  and 
Berkeley  Square — the  Squares,  par  excellence,  of 
fashionable  London — have  kept  their  seigniorial 
rights  untouched.  Pascal  told  us  of  some  very 
human  but  very  unregenerate  children  who  said 
"  This  dog  belongs  to  me,"  and  "  That  place  in  the 
sun  is  Mine," nnd.  Pascal's  comment  was,  "Behold, 
the  beginning  and  the  image  of  all  usurpation 
upon  earth  ! "  Similarly,  the  human  but  unre- 
generate landowners  of  fashionable  London  say, 
as  they  survey  their  possessions,  "  This  Square 
belongs  to  me,"  "  That  place  in  the  shade  is  Mine," 
while  the  August  sun  beats  down  on  the  malodor- 
ous street,  and  tottering  paupers  peer  wistfully  at 
the  benches  under  the  plane  trees,  and  street-boys 
flatten  their  noses  against  the  iron  railings  and 
madly  yearn  for  cricket-pitches  so  smooth  and 
green. 

Although  these  fashionable  Squares  are  so 
sedulously  guarded  against  the  intrusion  of  out- 
siders, they  are  very  little  used  by  those  who  have 
the  right  of  entrance.  "  Livery  Servants  and 
Dogs  not  admitted "  is  a  legendary  inscription 
which,  in  its  substance,  still  operates.  Here  and 
there  a  nurse  with  a  baby  in  her  arms  haunts  the 
shade,  or  a  parcel  of  older  children  play  lawn- 
tennis  or  croquet  to  an  accompaniment  of  chaff 
from  envious  street-boys.  But,  as  a  general  rule, 
for  twenty  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  and  for 
ten   months  out    of    the   twelve  the    Squares    are 


126  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

absolutely  vacant ;  and  one  of  the  most  reasonable 
reforms  which  I  could  conceive  would  be  to  con- 
vert them  from  private  pleasure-grounds  to  public 
gardens,  and  to  throw  the  cost  of  maintaining 
them  in  order  and  beauty  on  the  London  County 
Council. 

As  I  said  before,  some  Square-owners  have, 
without  waiting  for  legal  compulsion,  taken  tenta- 
tive steps  towards  this  reform.  The  Trustees  of 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  the  largest  and  the  shadiest 
of  all  London  Squares,  have  made  them  over  to 
the  County  Council,  and,  in  the  hot  months  of 
declining  summer,  the  juvenile  populations  of  Hol- 
born  and  St.  Giles  play  their  breathless  games 
where  Babington  was  hanged  and  Russell  beheaded. 
It  was  there  that,  on  the  20th  of  July  1683,  Sir 
Ralph  Verney,  riding  out  from  London  to  his 
home  in  Buckinghamshire,  "  saw  the  scaffold 
making  ready  against  Lord  Russell's  execution  to- 
morrow— God  help  him,  and  save  the  country." 

But  if  once  we  leave  the  utilities  and  amenities 
of  the  London  Squares  and  begin  to  meddle  with 
their  antiquities,  we  shall  soon  overflow  all  reason- 
able limits.  Bloomsbury  Square  still  reeks  (at 
least  for  those  who  know  their  "  Barnaby  Rudge  ") 
with  the  blood  which  was  shed  in  the  Gordon 
Riots.  Grosvenor  Square  —  the  last  district  of 
London  which  clung  to  oil-lamps  in  hopeless  re- 
sistance to  the  innovation  of  gas — embodies  the 
more   recent   memory  of    the    Cato    Street    Con- 


SQUARES  127 

spiracy.  In  Berkeley  Square  (from  what  is  now 
Lord  Rosebery's  house)  Sarah  Child  eloped,  and 
annexed  the  name  and  the  banking-house  of  Child 
to  the  Earldom  of  Jersey.  In  Portman  Square 
Mrs.  Montagu  presided  over  her  court  of  Blue- 
stockings and  feasted  the  chimney-sweeps  on 
May-day.  In  Manchester  Square,  under  the  roof 
which  now  houses  the  Wallace  Collection,  the 
dazzling  beauty  of  Isabella  Lady  Hertford  stirred 
the  fatuous  passion  of  George  IV.  In  Cavendish 
Square,  under  the  portico  of  Harcourt  House, 
lately  demolished,  Disraeli  said  good-bye  for 
ever  to  his  confederate  Lord  George  Bentinck. 
In  Hanover  Square,  Chantrey's  stately  statue  of 
William  Pitt  has  looked  down  on  a  century  of 
aristocratic  weddings,  ascending  and  descending 
the  steps  of  St.  George's  Church.  Sir  George 
Trevelyan,  commenting  on  a  Valentine  written 
by  Macaulay  for  Lady  Mary  Stanhope,  a  great- 
niece  of  Pitt's,  declares  that  "  the  allusion  to  the 
statue  in  Hanover  Square  is  one  of  the  happiest 
touches  that  can  be  found  in  Macaulay's  writings," 
and  that  is  a  sufficient  justification  for  quoting  it : — 

"  Prophetic  rage  my  bosom  swells  ; 
I  taste  the  cake,  I  hear  the  bells  ! 
From  Conduit  Street  the  close  array 
Of  chariots  barricades  the  way 
To  where  I  see,  with  outstretched  hand, 
Majestic,  thy  great  kinsman  stand, 
And  half  unbend  his  brow  of  pride, 
As  welcoming  so  fair  a  bride." 


XVIII 


SUNDAY    IN    LONDON 


It  is  the  middle  of  August,  and  there  is  nobody 
in  London — except,  of  course,  some  four  millions 
of  people  who  do  not  count.  There  is  nobody 
in  London  ;  and,  most  specially  and  noticeably, 
there  is  nobody  in  Church.  Be  it  far  from  me  to 
suggest  that  the  Country  Cousin  and  the  Trans- 
atlantic Brother,  who  flood  London  in  August 
and  September,  are  persons  of  indevout  habits. 
But  they  have  their  own  methods  and  places  of 
devotion  (of  which  I  may  speak  anon),  and  do 
not  affect  the  Parish  Churches,  with  which  I  am 
now  concerned.  I  have  excellent  opportunities  of 
judging  ;  for,  year  in  year  out,  in  tropical  heat  or 
Arctic  cold,  my  due  feet  never  fail  to  walk  the 
round  of  our  Stuccovian  churches,  and  I  can 
testify  that  in  August  and  September  Vacancy 
and  Depression  reign  unchallenged.  Seats  are 
empty.  Galleries  are  locked.  Collections  sink 
to  vanishing-point.  The  Vicar  of  St.  Ursula's, 
Stucco  Gardens,  accompanied  by  his  second  wife, 
is  sitting  under  a  white  umbrella  at  Dieppe,  watch- 
ing the   aquatic   gambols    of  his   twofold   family. 


128 


SUNDAY    IN    LONDON  129 

The  Senior  Curate  is  climbing  in  the  Alps. 
The  Junior  Curate,  who  stroked  his  College  Boat 
last  year  and  was  ordained  at  Trinity,  officiates 
in  agonies  of  self-conscious  shyness  which  would 
draw  tears  from  a  stone.  A  temporary  organist 
elicits  undreamt-of  harmonies.  The  organ-blower 
is  getting  his  health  in  the  hopfields.  The  choir- 
boys are  let  loose — 

"  On  Brighton's  shingly  beach,  on  Margate's  sand, 
Their  voice  out-pipes  the  roaring  of  the  sea." 

The  congregation  represents  the  mere  dregs 
and  remnants  of  Stuccovia's  social  prime.  Poor 
we  have  none,  and  our  rich  are  fled  to  Scotland 
or  Norway,  Homburg  or  Marienbad.  The  seats 
are  sparsely  tenanted  by  "  stern-faced  men  "  (like 
those  who  arrested  Eugene  Aram),  whom  business 
keeps  in  London  when  their  hearts  are  on  the 
moors  ;  over-burdened  mothers,  with  herds  of 
restless  schoolboys  at  home  for  the  holidays  and 
craving  for  more  ardent  delights  than  Stucco 
Gardens  yield  ;  decayed  spinsters  of  the  type  of 
Volumnia  Dedlock,  who,  having  exhausted  the 
hospitable  patience  of  their  ever-diminishing  band 
of  friends,  are  forced  to  the  horrid  necessity  of 
spending  the  autumn  in  London.  The  only 
cheerful  face  in  the  church  belongs  to  the  Pew- 
opener,  who,  being  impeded  in  the  discharge  of 
her  function  by  arthritic  rheumatism,  is  happiest 
when  congregations  are  smallest  and  there  are  no 

1 


130 


SEEING    AND    HEARING 


week-day  services  to  "molest  her  ancient  solitary 
reign." 


Evensong  is  over.  The  organist  is  struggling 
with  an  inconceivable  tune  from  "  The  English 
Hymnal "  (for  at  St.  Ursula's  we  are  nothing  if  not 
up  to  date).  The  Curate,  sicklied  o'er  with  that 
indescribable  horror  which  in  his  boating  days 
he  would  have  described  as  "The  Needle,"  is 
furtively  reperusing  his  manuscript  before  mount- 
ing the  pulpit,  and  does  not  detect  my  craven 
flight  as  I  slip  through  the  baize  door  and  dis- 
appear. It  is  characteristic  of  St.  Ursula's  that, 
even  when  empty,  it  is  fusty  ;  but  this  need 
surprise  no  one,  for  the  architect  was  strong  on  a 
"  scientific  system  of  ventilation,"  and  that,  as  we 
all  know,  means  very  little  ventilation  and  an 
overwhelming  amount  of  system. 

However,  my  courageous  flight  has  delivered 
me  from  asphyxiation,  and,  before  returning  to 
my  modest  Sunday  supper  of  Paysandu  Ox-tongue 
and  sardines,  I  think  that  I  will  reinflate  my  lungs 
by  a  stroll  round  Hyde  Park.  There  is  a  lovely 
redness  in  the  western  sky  over  the  Serpentine 
Bridge,  but  it  is  still  broad  daylight.  The  sere 
and  yellow  turf  of  the  Park  is  covered  by  some  of 
those  four  millions  who  do  not  count  and  do  not 
go  to  church,  but  who,  apparently,  are  fond  of 
sermons.     At   the  end  of  each    hundred   yards    I 


' 


SUNDAY    IN  LONDON  131 

come  upon  a  preacher  of  some  religious,  social, 
or  political  gospel,  and  round  each  is  gathered  a 
crowd  of  listeners  who  follow  his  utterances  with 
interested  attention.  When  I  think  of  St.  Ursula's 
and  the  pavid  Curate  and  my  graceless  flight,  I 
protest  that  I  am  covered  with  shame  as  with  a 
garment.  But  the  wrong  done  in  the  church 
can  be  repaired  in  the  Park.  I  have  missed  one 
sermon,  but  I  will  hear  another.  Unluckily,  when 
these  compunctious  visitings  seized  me  I  was 
standing  by  a  rostrum  of  heterodoxy.  For  all  I 
know  the  preacher  may  have  followers  among  my 
readers  ;  so,  as  I  would  not  for  the  world  wound 
even  the  least  orthodox  susceptibilities,  I  forbear 
to  indicate  the  theory  which  he  enounced.  As  he 
spoke,  I  seemed  to  live  a  former  life  over  again  ; 
for  I  had  once  before  been  present  at  an  exactly 
similar  preaching,  in  company,  either  bodily  or 
spiritual,  with  my  friend  Mr.  James  Payn,  and  his 
comments  on  the  scene  revived  themselves  in 
my  memory,  even  as  the  remote  associations  of 
Ellangowan  reawoke  in  the  consciousness  of  Harry 
Bertram  when  he  returned  from  his  wanderings, 
and  gazed,  bewildered,  on  his  forgotten  home. 
(Henceforward  it  is  Payn  that  speaks.)  The 
preacher  of  Heterodoxy  was  entirely  without 
enthusiasm,  nor  did  his  oratory  borrow  any 
meretricious  attractions  from  the  Muse.  It  was 
a  curious  farrago  of  logic  without  reason  and 
premisses    without   facts,    and   was    certainly   the 


132  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

least  popular,  though  not  the  least  numerously 
attended,  of  all  the  competing  sermons  in  the 
Park.  Suddenly  the  preacher  gave  expression  to 
a  statement  more  monstrous  than  common,  on 
which  an  old  lady  in  the  crowd,  who  had  hereto- 
fore been  listening  with  great  complacency,  ex- 
claimed in  horror,  "  I'm  sure  this  ain't  true  Gospel," 
and  immediately  decamped.  Up  to  that  point,  she 
had  apparently  been  listening  under  the  impression 
that  the  preacher  belonged  to  her  own  blameless 
persuasion,  and  was  in  the  blankest  ignorance  of 
all  that  he  had  been  driving  at. 

But  Sunday  in  London  has  religious  attractions 
to  offer  besides  those  purveyed  by  St.  Ursula's 
and  Hyde  Park.  I  said  at  the  outset  that  the 
Country  Cousin  and  the  Transatlantic  Brother 
have  their  own  methods  and  places  of  devotion 

their    Mecca   is  St.    Paul's   Cathedral.     One   of 

the  pleasantest  ways  of  spending  a  Sunday  evening 
in  London  is  to  join  the  pilgrim-throng.  The 
great  west  doors  of  the  Cathedral  are  flung  wide 
open,  as  if  to  welcome  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury or  the  Lord  Mayor,  and  all  at  once  we  find 
ourselves,  hushed  and  awestruck,  in  the  illimit- 
able perspective.  Even  the  staunchest  believer 
in  Gothic  as  the  only  religious  architecture  may 
admit,  with  disloyalty  to  his  faith,  that  every  year 
St.  Paul's  becomes  more  like  a  place  of  Christian 
worship  and  less  like  a  glorified  Council-hall  or 
an  Imperial  Senate-house.     And  it  is  seen  at  its 


SUNDAY    IN    LONDON  133 

best  in  twilight.  The  shadows  temper  the  garish 
splendour  of  mosaic  and  gold  and  electricity,  and 
enhance  the  dominant  sense  of  vastness  and 
grandeur.  And  prayer  ascends  on  the  wings  of 
music  and  sweet  boy-voices  ring,  and  the  distant 
altar,  with  its  gleaming  lights,  focuses  the  meaning 
and  purpose  of  the  whole.  And  then  the  great 
"  Communion  of  Hymns  "  unites  us  all,  American 
and  English,  Londoner  and  countryman,  as  citi- 
zens of  a  city  not  built  with  hands,  patriots  of  a 
country  which  is  not  marked  on  the  terrestrial 
globe.  Bernard  of  Cluny  and  William  Cowper  and 
John  Keble  all  contribute  of  their  best.  "  Brief 
life  is  here  our  portion  "  seems  to  utter  the  real 
heart's  desire  of  a  tired-looking  mechanic  who 
stands  by  my  side.  "  Hark,  my  soul ! "  seems  to 
communicate  its  own  intensity  to  the  very  tone 
and  look  of  the  people  who  are  singing  it.  u  Sun 
of  my  soul  "  is  an  evening  prayer  which  sounds 
just  as  natural  and  as  fitting  in  the  inmost  heart 
of  London's  crowd  and  grind  and  pressure  as  in 
the  sweet  solitude  of  the  Hursley  fields.  In  the 
pulpit  a  pale  preacher,  himself  half  worn-out 
before  his  prime  by  ten  years'  battle  in  a  slum,  is 
extolling  the  Cross  as  the  test  and  strength  and 
glory  of  human  life — 

"  While  at  his  feet  the  human  ocean  lay, 
And  wave  on  wave  rolled  into  space  away." 

A  human  stream  indeed,  of  all  sorts  and  conditions 


i34  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

— old  men  and  maidens,  young  men  and  children, 
rich  and  poor,  English  and  foreigners,  sightseers 
and  citizens,  dapper  clerks  and  toil-stained  citizens 
and  red-coated  soldiers — all  interested,  and  all  at 
ease,  and  all*at  home  at  what  Bishop  Lightfoot 
called  "  the  centre  of  the  world's  concourse  " — 
under  the  cross-crowned  Dome  of  St.  Paul's. 


TT 


XIX 

A    SUBURBAN    SUNDAY 

"  It  seems  to  the  writer  of  this  history  that  the 
inhabitants  of  London  are  scarcely  sufficiently 
sensible  of  the  beauty  of  its  environs.  .  .  .  With 
the  exception  of  Constantinople,  there  is  no  city 
in  the  world  that  can  for  a  moment  enter  into 
competition  with  it.  For  himself,  trfeugh  in  his 
time  something  of  a  rambler,  he  is  not  ashamed 
in  this  respect  to  confess  to  a  legitimate  Cockney 
taste  ;  and  for  his  part  he  does  not  know  where 
life  can  flow  on  more  pleasantly  than  in  sight  of 
Kensington  Gardens,  viewing  the  silver  Thames 
winding  by  the  bowers  of  Rosebank,  or  inhaling 
from  its  terraces  the  refined  air  of  graceful  Rich- 
mond. In  exactly  ten  minutes  it  is  in  the  power 
of  every  man  to  free  himself  from  all  the  tumult 
of  the  world  and  find  himself  in  a  sublime  sylvan 
solitude  superior  to  the  Cedars  of  Lebanon  and 
inferior  only  in  extent  to  the  chestnut  forests  of 
Anatolia." 

The  judicious  critic  will  have  little  difficulty  in 
assigning  this  vivid  passage  to  the  too-graphic  pen 

of  Lord  Beaconsfield  ;  but  he  will  also  recognize 

135 


136  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

the  fact  that  a  description  written  in    1837   needs 
some   modification   when    applied   to    1906.     The 
central  solitude  of  London — Kensington  Gardens 
— is  still  very  much  as  it  was.     Just  now,  its  dark 
foliage  and  dusky  glades  suggest  all  the  romantic 
associations  of  Gustave  Dore's  forests,  with  a  tall 
trooper  of  the  Life  Guards  and  a  bashful  nursery- 
maid, for  a  Red  Cross  Knight  and  an  Enchanted 
Princess.     If  we  go  further  afield  and  climb  the  up- 
lands of  Highgate  and  Hampstead,  we  look  down 
upon  a  boundless  and  beautiful  city  dimly  visible 
through   a  golden  haze.     But   the    difference   be- 
tween the  environs  of  London  now  and  the  same 
environs  when  Lord  Beaconsfield  described  them 
is  that  they  are  now  united  to  the  centre  by  an 
unbroken  network  of  gaslit  streets.    The  enormous 
increase  in  the  population  of  London,  which  every 
year  brings  with  it,  fills  up  the  gaps  and  spaces, 
and  the  metropolis  is  now  a  solid  whole,  with  its 
circumference  extending  further  and  further  every 
day  into  what  a  year  ago  was  country.     In  other 
words,  the   suburbs  are    getting   further    off,   and 
what  are  suburbs  to-day  will  be  town  to-morrow ; 
but  still  there  are  suburbs,  and  a  Sunday  spent 
in  them  is  an  interesting  experience. 

Yesterday  the  well  -  known  stuffiness  of  St. 
Ursula's,  combined  with  the  kind  hospitality  of 
some  suburban  friends,  drove  me  to  spend  my 
Sunday  about  ten  miles  from  Stucco  Square.  It 
is  a  characteristic   of  people  who  live  in  suburbs 


A    SUBURBAN    SUNDAY  137 

to  believe  that  their  lot  is  cast  in  a  primaeval 
solitude,  and  that,  though  the  Dome  of  St.  Paul's 
is  plainly  visible  from  their  back  gardens,  the 
traveller  who  ventures  to  approach  them  needs 
explicit  and  intricate  directions  about  routes  and 
trains  and  changes  and  stations.  The  station  for 
my  friend's  place  was  called  by  a  name  intensely 
suggestive  of  rurality — not  exactly  "  Rosebank," 
but  Rosebank  will  serve.  Readers  of  Archbishop 
Temple's  Life  will  remember  that  a  clergyman, 
excusing  himself  for  living  a  long  way  from  his 
church,  urged  that  it  was  only  three  miles  as  the 
crow  flies,  thereby  drawing  down  on  himself  the 
implacable  reply,  "But  you  ain't  a  crow."  In 
the  same  way  I  found  that,  though  Rosebank  is 
only  ten  miles  from  Stucco  Square  "  as  the  crow 
flies,"  a  human  being  seeking  to  approach  it  must 
first  make  a  considerable  journey  to  a  central 
terminus,  must  then  embark  in  a  train  which  a 
tortoise  might  outstrip,  must  change  twice,  and 
must  burrow  through  a  sulphurous  tunnel  ;  and 
must  even  then  run  a  considerable  risk  of  being 
carried  through  Rosebank  Station,  which  all  self- 
respecting  trains  seem  to  ignore. 

Faced  by  these  difficulties,  I  again  took  counsel 
with  Lord  Beaconsfield.  "  < 'Tis  the  gondola  of 
London,'  exclaimed  Lothair,  as  he  leapt  into  a 
hansom,  which  he  had  previously  observed  to  be 
well-horsed."  My  Gondolier  was  ready  with  his 
terms— a  very  liberal  payment,  several  hours'  rest, 


138  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

his  dinner  and  tea,  and  something  extra  for 
putting  up  his  horse.  Granted  these  prelimina- 
ries, he  would  "  do  the  job  on  'is  'ead."  It  would 
"  be  a  little  'oliday  to  'im."  I  in  vain  suggested 
that  the  opportunity  of  attending  Divine  Service 
twice  at  Rosebank  Church  might  be  regarded  as 
part  payment  of  his  charge  ;  he  replied,  with 
startling  emphasis,  that  he  didn't  go  into  the 
country  to  go  to  church — not  if  he  knew  it  ;  that, 
if  I  wanted  him,  I  must  take  him  on  the  terms 
proposed  ;  and,  further,  that  I  mustn't  mind 
starting  early,  for  he  wanted  to  get  his  horse  down 
cool. 

The  Gondolier  had  his  own  way  ;  and,  while  the 
sparrows  were  still  twittering  and  the  housemaids 
were  taking  in  the  milk  and  the  Sunday  paper, 
I  was  well  on  my  road  to  Rosebank.  This  much 
I  will  concede  to  the  curiosity  of  readers — that 
my  road  led  me  out  of  London  in  a  south-easterly 
direction,  by  the  Horseferry,  where  James  II. 
dropped  the  Great  Seal  into  the  Thames,  along  the 
Old  Kent  Road,  of  which  a  modern  minstrel  sang  ; 
past  Kennington  Common,  now  a  "  Park,"  where 
the  gallant  Jacobites  of  '45  underwent  the  hideous 
doom  of  Treason,  where  the  iron-shuttered  windows 
still  commemorate  the  Chartist  rising  of  '48,  and 
where  Sackville  Maine  took  his  Sunday  walk  with 
Mrs.  Sackville  and  old  Mrs.  Chuff.  On  past  the 
"  Hamlet  of  Dulwich,"  where  Mr.  Pickwick  spent 
the  last  years  of  his  honoured  life,  to  Chislehurst, 


A    SUBURBAN    SUNDAY  139 

where  Napoleon  III.  hid  his  exiled  head,  and 
North  Cray,  where  the  tragedy  of  Lord  London- 
derry's death  is  not  yet  forgotten,  and  Shooters' 
Hill,  where  Jerry  Cruncher  stopped  the  coach 
with  the  terrifying  message  of  "  Recalled  to  Life." 
Now,  as  readers  are  sometimes  unduly  literal,  and 
as  I  would  not  willingly  involve  any  one  in  an 
hour's  fruitless  puzzling  over  a  map,  let  me  say 
that  this  itinerary  is  rather  general  than  particular, 
and  that,  although  the  Gondolier  pursued  an  ex- 
tremely devious  course  and  murmured  when  I 
suggested  straighter  paths,  we  did  not  touch  all 
the  above-mentioned  places  in  our  morning's 
drive.  But  evermore  we  tended  south-eastwards, 
and  evermore  the  houses  grew  imperceptibly  less 
dignified.  Stone  and  stucco  we  had  left  behind 
us  on  the  northern  side  of  the  river,  and  now  it 
was  a  boundless  contiguity  of  brick — yellow  brick, 
rather  grimy, — small  houses  with  porticos,  slips 
of  dusty  garden  between  the  front  door  and  the 
road,  and  here  and  there  a  row  of  wayside  trees. 
But  everywhere  gas,  and  everywhere  omnibi  (as 
the  classical  lady  said,)  and  everywhere  electric 
trams.  Churches  of  every  confession  and  every 
architecture  lined  the  way,  varied  with  Public- 
houses  of  many  signs,  Municipal  Buildings  of 
startling  splendour  (for  Borough  Councils  have  a 
flamboyant  taste),  and  Swimming  Baths  and  Public 
Libraries,  and  here  and  there  a  private  Lunatic 
Asylum  frowning  behind  suggestively  solemn  gates. 


i4o  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Now  we  are  in  a  long  and  featureless  street, 
with  semi-detached  houses  on  either  hand,  and 
a  malodorous  cab-stand  and  a  four-faced  clock. 
"  Which  way  for  Rosebank  ?  "  shouts  the  Gondo- 
lier. "The  first  to  your  left  and  then  turn  sharp 
to  the  right,"  bellows  a  responsive  policeman.  We 
follow  the  direction  given,  and  suddenly  we  are  there 
— not  at  Rosebank,  but  quite  out  of  even  Greater 
London.  The  street  ends  abruptly.  Trams  and 
trains  and  gas  and  shops  are  left  behind,  and  all 
at  once  we  are  in  the  country.  The  road  is  lined 
with  hedgerows,  dusty  indeed,  but  still  alive. 
Elms  of  respectable  dimensions  look  down  upon 
big  fields,  with  here  and  there  an  oak,  and  cows 
resting  under  it.  At  one  turn  of  the  road  there  is 
a  recognizable  odour  of  late-cut  hay,  and  in  the 
middle  distance  I  distinctly  perceive  a  turnip-field, 
out  of  which  a  covey  of  partridges  might  rise 
without  surprising  any  one.  We  pull  up  and  gaze 
around.  Look  where  I  will,  I  cannot  see  a  house, 
nor  even  a  cottage.  Surely  my  friends  have  not 
played  a  practical  joke  on  me  and  asked  me  to 
spend  a  day  in  an  imaginary  Paradise.  The 
Gondolier  looks  at  his  perspiring  horse,  and  mops 
his  own  brow,  and  gazes  contemptuously  on  the 
landscape.  "  I  should  call  this  the  world's  end 
if  I  was  arst,"  he  says.  "  Blow'd  if  they've  even 
got  a  Public  'Ouse."  Suddenly  the  sound  of  a 
shrill  bell  bursts  on  the  ear.  The  Gondolier, 
who  is  a  humorist,  says  "  Muffins." 


A    SUBURBAN    SUNDAY  141 

I  jump  out  of  the  gondola,  and  pursue  the 
welcome  tinkle  round  a  sharp  angle  in  the  road. 
There  I  see,  perched  on  the  brow  of  a  sandy 
knoll,  a  small  tin  building,  which  a  belfry  and  a 
cross  proclaim  to  be  a  church.  Inside  I  discover 
the  Oldest  Inhabitant  pulling  the  muffin-bell  with 
cheerful  assiduity.  He  is  more  than  ready  to  talk, 
and  his  whole  discourse  is  as  countrified  as  if 
he  lived  a  hundred  miles  from  Charing  Cross. 
"  Yes,  this  is  a  main  lonely  place.  There  ain't 
many  people  lives  about  'ere.  Why,  ten  years  ago 
it  was  all  fields.  Now  there  are  some  houses — 
not  many.  He  lives  in  one  himself.  How  far 
off  ?  Well,  a  matter  of  a  mile  or  so.  He  was 
born  on  the  Squire's  land  ;  his  father  worked  on 
the  farm.  Yes,  he's  lived  here  all  his  life.  Re- 
members it  before  there  was  a  Crystal  Palace, 
and  when  there  was  no  railways  or  nothing.  He 
hasn't  often  been  in  the  train,  and  has  only  been 
up  to  London  two  or  three  times.  Who  goes 
to  the  church  ?  Well — not  many,  except  the 
Squire's  family  and  the  school-children.  Why 
was  it  built  ?  Oh,  the  Squire  wants  to  get  some 
rich  folks  to  live  round  about.  He's  ready  to 
part  with  his  land  for  building  ;  and  there's  going 
to  be  a  row  of  houses  built  just  in  front  of  the 
church.  He  reckons  the  people  will  be  more 
likely  to  come  now  that  there's  a  church  for 
them  to  go  to."  And  now  the  "  ten-minutes " 
bell    begins    with    livelier    measure  ;    the    Oldest 


142 


SEEING    AND    HEARING 


Inhabitant  shows  me  to  a  seat ;  and,  on  the 
stroke  of  eleven,  a  shrill  "  Amen "  is  heard  in 
the  vestry,  and  there  enters  a  modest  proces- 
sion of  surpliced  schoolboys  and  a  clergyman  in 
a  green  stole.  His  sons  and  daughters,  the  wife 
of  the  Oldest  Inhabitant,  and  the  sisters  of  the 
choristers,  from  the  congregation,  eked  out  by 
myself  and  my  friends  from  Rosebank,  who  arrive 
a  little  flushed  and  complain  that  they  have  been 
waiting  for  me.  The  u  service  is  fully  choral,"  as 
they  say  in  accounts  of  fashionable  weddings  ; 
the  clergyman  preaches  against  the  Education 
Bill,  and  a  collection  (of  copper)  is  made  to 
defray  the  expenses  of  a  meeting  at  the  Albert 
Hall.  It  is  pleasant  to  see  that,  even  in  these 
secluded  districts,  the  watch-dogs  of  the  Church 
are  on  the  alert. 


XX 


WINE    AND    WATER 


The  second  and  third  words  are  added  to  the  title 
in  deference  to  the  weather.  One  must  be  a 
hardened  toper  if,  with  the  thermometer  at  93  in 
the  shade,  one  can  find  comfort  in  the  thought  of 
undiluted  wine.  Rather  I  would  take  pattern  from 
Thackeray's  friend  the  Bishop,  with  his  "  rounded 
episcopal  apron."  "  He  put  water  into  his  wine. 
Let  us  respect  the  moderation  of  the  Established 
Church."  But  water  is  an  after-thought,  inci- 
dental and  ephemeral.  It  was  on  wine  that  I  was 
meditating  when  the  mercury  rushed  up  and  put 
more  temperate  thoughts  into  my  head,  and  it 
was  Sir  Victor  Horsley  who  set  me  on  thinking 
about  wine.  Sir  Victor  has  been  discoursing  at 
Ontario  about  the  mischiefs  of  Alcohol,  and  the 
perennial  controversy  has  revived  in  all  its  accus- 
tomed vigour.  Once  every  five  years  some  leading 
light  of  the  medical  profession  declares  with  much 
solemnity  that  Alochol  is  a  poison,  that  Wine  is 
the  foundation   of  death,  and   that  Gingerbeer  or 


143 


i44 


SEEING    AND    HEARING 


Toast-and-Water  or  Zoedone  or  Kopps  or  some 
kindred  potion  is  the  true  and  the  sole  elixir 
of  life.  Sir  Oracle  always  chooses  August  or 
September  for  the  delivery  of  his  dogma,  and 
immediately  there  ensues  a  correspondence  which 
suitably  replaces  "Ought  Women  to  Propose?" 
"Do  We  Believe?"  and  "What  is  Wrong?" 
Enthusiastic  teetotallers  fill  the  columns  of  the 
press  with  letters  which  in  their  dimensions  rival 
the  Enormous  Gooseberry  and  in  their  demands 
on  our  credulity  exceed  the  Sea  Serpent.  To 
these  reply  the  advocates  of  Alcohol,  with  statistical 
accounts  of  patriarchs  who  always  breakfasted  on 
half-and-half,  and  near  and  dear  relations  who 
were  rescued  from  the  jaws  of  death  by  a  timely 
exhibition  of  gin  and  bitters.  And  so  the  game 
goes  merrily  on  till  October  recalls  us  to  common 
sense. 

Thus  far,  the  gem  of  this  autumn's  correspond- 
ence is,  I  think,  the  following  instance  contributed 
by  an  opponent  of  Sir  Victor  Horsley  : — 

"  A  British  officer  lay  on  his  camp-bed  in  India 
suffering  from  cholera.  His  medical  attendants 
had  concluded  that  nothing  more  could  be  done 
for  him,  and  that  his  seizure  must  end  fatally. 
His  friends  visited  him  to  shake  his  hand  and  to 
offer  their  sympathetic  good-byes,  including  his 
dearest  regimental  chum,  who,  deciding  to  keep 
his   emotion    down    by   assuming   a    cheerful    de- 


WINE    AND    WATER  145 

meanour,  remarked,  '  Well,  old  chap,  we  all  must 
go  sometime  and  somehow.  Is  there  anything 
you  would  like  me  to  get  you  ? '  Hardly  able  to 
speak,  the  sufferer  indicated,  '  I'll  take  a  drop  of 
champagne  with  you,  as  a  last  friendly  act,  if  I 
can  get  it  down.'  With  difficulty  he  took  a  little, 
and  still  lives  to  tell  the  story." 

Since  the  "affecting  instance  of  Colonel  Snobley" 
we  have  had  nothing  quite  so  rich  as  that — unless, 
indeed,  it  was  the  thrill  of  loyal  rejoicing  which 
ran  round  the  nation  when,  just  before  Christmas 
1 87 1,  it  was  announced  that  our  present  Sovereign, 
then  in  the  throes  of  typhoid,  had  called  for  a 
glass  of  beer.  Then,  like  true  Britons,  reared  on 
malt  and  hops,  we  felt  that  all  was  well,  and 
addressed  ourselves  to  our  Christmas  turkey  with 
the  comfortable  assurance  that  the  Prince  of 
Wales  had  turned  the  corner.  Reared  on  malt 
and  hops,  I  said  ;  but  many  other  ingredients  went 
to  the  system  on  which  some  of  us  were  reared. 
"  That  poor  creature,  small  beer "  at  meal-time, 
was  reinforced  by  a  glass  of  port  wine  at  eleven, 
by  brandy  and  water  if  ever  one  looked  squeamish, 
by  mulled  claret  at  bedtime  in  cold  weather,  by 
champagne  on  all  occasions  of  domestic  festivity, 
and  by  hot  elderberry  wine  if  one  had  a  cold  in 
the  head.  Poison  ?  quotha.  It  was  like  Fonte- 
nelle's  coffee,  and,  even  though  some  of  us  have 
not  yet  turned   eighty,  at  any  rate  we  were   not 

K 


146 


SEEING    AND    HEARING 


cut  off  untimely  nor  hurried  into  a  drunkard's 
grave.  And  then  think  of  the  men  whom  the 
system  produced !  Thackeray  (who  knew  what 
he  was  talking  about)  said  that  "  our  intellect 
ripens  with  good  cheer  and  throws  off  surprising 
crops  under  the  influence  of  that  admirable  liquid, 
claret."  But  all  claret,  according  to  Dr.  Johnson, 
would  be  port  if  it  could  ;  and  a  catena  of  port 
wine-drinkers  could  contain  some  of  the  most 
famous  names  of  the  last  century.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
to  whom  the  other  pleasures  of  the  table  meant 
nothing,  was  a  stickler  for  port,  a  believer  in  it,  a 
judge  of  it.  The  only  feeble  speech  which,  in  my 
hearing,  he  ever  made  was  made  after  dining  at 
an  otherwise  hospitable  house  where  wine  was 
not  suffered  to  appear.  Lord  Tennyson,  until 
vanquished  by  Sir  Andrew  Clark,  drank  his  bottle 
of  port  every  day,  and  drank  it  undecanted,  for, 
as  he  justly  observed,  a  decanter  holds  only  eight 
glasses,  but  a  black  bottle  nine.  Mr.  Browning, 
if  he  could  have  his  own  way,  drank  port  all 
through  dinner  as  well  as  after  it.  Sir  Moses 
Montefiore,  who,  as  his  kinsfolk  said,  got  up  to 
par — or,  in  other  words,  completed  his  hundred 
years, — had  drunk  a  bottle  of  port  every  day 
since  he  came  to  man's  estate.  Dr.  Charles 
Sumner,  the  last  Prince-Bishop  of  Winchester,  so 
comely  and  benign  that  he  was  called  "  The 
Beauty   of   Holiness,"   lent    ecclesiastical  sanction 


WINE    AND    WATER  147 

to  the  same  tradition  by  not  only  drinking  port 
himself  but  distributing  it  with  gracious  gene- 
rosity to  impoverished  clergy.  But,  if  I  were 
to  sing  all  the  praises  of  port,  I  should  have  no 
room  for  other  wines. 

Sherry — but  no.  Just  now  it  is  a  point  of 
literary  honour  not  to  talk  about  sherry  ; 1  so, 
Dante-like,  I  do  not  reason  about  that  particular 
wine,  but  gaze  and  pass  on — only  remarking,  as  I 
pass,  that  Mr.  Ruskin's  handsome  patrimony  was 
made  out  of  sherry,  and  that  this  circumstance 
lent  a  peculiar  zest  to  his  utterances  from  the 
professorial  chair  at  Oxford  about  the  immorality 
of  Capital  and  "  the  sweet  poison  of  misused 
wine."  An  enthusiastic  clergyman  who  wore  the 
Blue  Ribbon  had  been  urging  on  Archbishop 
Benson  his  own  strong  convictions  about  the 
wickedness  of  wine-drinking.  That  courtly  prelate 
listened  with  tranquil  sympathy  till  the  orator 
stopped  for  breath,  and  then  observed,  in  suavest 
accents,  "  And  yet  I  always  think  that  good  claret 
tastes  very  like  a  good  creature  of  God."  There 
are  many  who,  in  the  depths  of  their  conscience, 
agree  with  his  Grace  ;  and  they  would  drink 
claret  and  nothing  but  claret  if  they  could  get  it 
at  dinner.  Far  distant  are  the  days  when  Lord 
Alvanley  said,  "  The  little  wine  I  drink  I  drink  at 

1  A  correspondence  on  Sherry  had  just  been  running  in  the  daily 
press. 


Y 


148  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

dinner, — but  the  great  deal  of  wine  I  drink  I  drink 
after  dinner."     Nowadays  no  one  drinks  any  after 
dinner.      The    King   killed    after-dinner    drinking 
when   he    introduced    cigarettes.      But,    for   some 
inexplicable    reason,    men  who   have   good   claret 
will  not  produce  it  at  dinner.     They  wait  till  the 
air    is    poisoned    and    the    palate    deadened    with 
tobacco,  and  then   complain  that   nobody  drinks 
claret.     The  late   Lord  Granville  (who  had  spent 
so  many  years  of  his  life  in  taking  the  chair  at 
public  dinners  that  his  friends  called  him  Pere  La 
Chaise)  once  told  me  that,  where  you  are  not  sure 
of  your  beverages,   it  was  always  safest  to  drink 
hock.     So  little  was  drunk  in  England  that  it  was 
not    worth    while    to    adulterate    it.     Since    those 
days  the   still    wines   of    Mosel   have   flooded   the 
country,  and  it  is  difficult  to  repress  the  conviction 
that  the   principal   vineyards  must  belong  to  the 
Medical  Faculty,  so  persistently  and  so  universally 
do  they  prescribe  those  rather  dispiriting  vintages. 
But,  after   all  said  and  done,  when   we  in  the 
twentieth  century  say  Wine,  we  mean  champagne, 
even  as  our  fathers  meant  port.      And   in  cham- 
pagne  we    have    seen    a  silent  but  epoch-making 
revolution.     I   well    remember   the  champagne  of 
my  youth  ;  a  liquid  esteemed  more  precious  than 
gold,  and  dribbled  out  into  saucer-shaped  glasses 
half-way   through    dinner    on    occasions    of    high 
ceremony.     It  was  thick  and  sticky  ;  in  colour  a 


WINE    AND    WATER  149 

sort  of  brick-dust  red,  and  it  scarcely  bubbled,  let 
alone  foaming  or  sparkling. 

"  How  sad,  and  bad,  and  mad  it  was, — 
And  oh  !  how  it  was  sweet !  " 

Nowadays,  we  are  told,  more  champagne  is  drunk 
in  Russia  than  is  grown  in  France.  And  the 
"  foaming  grape,"  which  Tennyson  glorified,  is  so 
copiously  diluted  that  it  ranks  only  immedi- 
ately above  small  beer  in  the  scale  of  alcoholic 
strength.  Mr.  Finching,  the  wine-merchant  in 
"  Little  Dorrit,"  thought  it  "  weak  but  palatable," 
and  Lord  St.  Jerome  in  "  Lothair  "  was  esteemed 
by  the  young  men  a  "  patriot,"  "  because  he 
always  gave  his  best  champagne  at  his  ball 
suppers."  Such  patriotism  as  that,  at  any  rate, 
is  not  the  refuge  of  a  scoundrel. 

Wine  and  Water.  I  return  to  my  beginnings, 
and,  as  I  ponder  the  innocuous  theme,  all  sorts 
of  apt  citations  come  crowding  on  the  Ear  of 
Memory.  Bards  of  every  age  and  clime  have 
sung  the  praises  of  wine,  but  songs  in  praise  of 
water  are  more  difficult  to  find.  Once  on  a  time, 
when  a  Maid  of  Honour  had  performed  a  rather 
mild  air  on  the  piano,  Queen  Victoria  asked  her 
what  it  was  called.  "  A  German  Drinking-Song, 
ma'am."  "  Drinking-Song  !  One  couldn't  drink 
a  cup  of  tea  to  it."  A  kindred  feebleness  seems 
to  have  beset  all  the  poets  who  have  tried  to 
hymn    the   praises    of   water  ;    nor    was   it    over- 


w 


150 


SEEING    AND    HEARING 


come  till  some  quite  recent  singer,  who  had  not 
forgotten  his  Pindar,  thus  improved  on  the  im- 
mortal Ariston  men  hndor : — 

"  Pure  water  is  the  best  of  gifts 
That  man  to  man  can  bring ; 
But  what  am  I,  that  I  should  have 
The  best  of  anything  ? 

"  Let  Princes  revel  at  the  Pump, 
Let  Peers  enjoy  their  tea;1 
But  whisky,  beer,  or  even  wine 
Is  good  enough  for  me." 

1  Some  commentators  read — "  Peers  with  the  pond  make  free." 


XXI 

DINNER 

"  We  may  live  without  poetry,  music,  and  art ; 
We  may  live  without  conscience  and  live  without  heart ; 
We  may  live  without  friends ;  we  may  live  without  books  ; 
But  civilized  man  cannot  live  without  Cooks. 

"  He    may    live    without    lore  —  what    is    knowledge    but 
grieving  ? 
He  may  live  without  hope — what  is  hope  but  deceiving  ? 
He  may  live  without  love — what  is  passion  but  pining  ? 
But  where  is  the  man  that  can  live  without  dining  ? '' 

The  poet  who  wrote  those  feeling  lines  acted  up 
to  what  he  professed,  and  would,  I  think,  have 
been  interested  in  our  present  subject  ;  for  he  it 
was  who,  in  the  mellow  glory  of  his  literary  and 
social  fame,  said  :  "  It  is  many  years  since  I  felt 
hungry  ;  but,  thank  goodness,  I  am  still  greedy." 
In  my  youth  there  used  to  be  a  story  of  a  High 
Sheriff  who,  having  sworn  to  keep  the  jury  in  a 
trial  for  felony  locked  up  without  food  or  drink 
till  they  had  agreed  upon  their  verdict,  was  told 
that  one  of  them  was  faint  and  had  asked  for  a 
glass    of    water.     The    High    Sheriff    went  to   the 

Judge  and  requested  his  directions.     The  Judge, 

151 


-*_ 


152  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

after  due  reflection,  ruled  as  follows  :  "  You  have 
sworn  not  to  give  the  jury  food  or  drink  till  they 
have  agreed  upon  their  verdict.  A  glass  of  water 
certainly  is  not  food  ;  and,  for  my  own  part,  I 
shouldn't  call  it  drink.  Yes  ;  you  can  give  the 
man  a  glass  of  water." 

In  a  like  spirit,  I  suppose  that  most  of  us  would 
regard  wine  as  being,  if  not  of  the  essence,  at 
least  an  inseparable  accident,  of  Dinner  ;  but  the 
subject  of  wine  has  been  so  freely  handled  in  a 
previous  chapter  that,  though  it  is  by  no  means 
exhausted,  we  will  to-day  treat  it  only  incidentally, 
and  as  it  presents  itself  in  connexion  with  the 
majestic  theme  of  Dinner. 

The  great  Lord  Holland,  famed  in  Memoirs, 
was  greater  in  nothing  than  in  his  quality  of  host  ; 
and,  like  all  the  truly  great,  he  manifested  all 
his  noblest  attributes  on  the  humblest  occasions. 
Thus,  he  was  once  entertaining  a  schoolboy,  who 
had  come  to  spend  a  whole  holiday  at  Holland 
House,  and,  in  the  openness  of  his  heart,  he  told 
the  urchin  that  he  might  have  what  he  liked  for 
dinner.  "  Young  in  years,  but  in  sage  counsels 
old,"  as  the  divine  Milton  says,  the  Westminster 
boy  demanded,  not  sausages  and  strawberry  cream, 
but  a  roast  duck  with  green  peas,  and  an  apricot 
tart.  The  delighted  host  brushed  away  a  tear 
of  sensibility,  and  said,  "  My  boy,  if  in  all  the 
important  questions  of  your  life  you  decide  as 
wisely  as  you  have   decided  now,  you   will  be  a 


DINNER  153 

great  and  a  good  man."  The  prophecy  was 
verified,  and  surely  the  incident  deserved  to  be  em- 
balmed in  verse  ;  but,  somehow,  the  poets  always 
seem  to  have  fought  shy  of  Dinner.  Byron,  as 
might  be  expected,  comes  nearest  to  the  proper 
inspiration  when  he  writes  of 

"  A  roast  and  a  ragout, 
And  fish,  and  soup,  by  some  side  dishes  back'd." 

But   even  this  is   tepid.     Owen    Meredith,   in  the 

poem    from    which    I    have  already   quoted,  gives 

some  portion  of  a  menu  in  metre.     Sydney  Smith, 

as  we  all  know,  wrote  a  recipe  for  a  salad  in  heroic 

couplets.      Prior,   I   think,  describes  a  City  Feast, 

bringing  in   "  swan   and  bustard "   to  rhyme  with 

"  tart  and  custard."     The  late  Mr.  Mortimer  Collins 

is  believed  to  have  been  the  only  writer  who  ever 

put  "  cutlet "  into  a  verse.     When   Rogers  wrote 

"  the  rich  relics  of  a  well-spent  hour  "  he  was  not 

— though    he    ought    to   have    been — thinking    of 

dinner.    Shakespeare  and  Spenser,  and  Milton  and 

Wordsworth,  and  Shelley  and  Tennyson  deal  only 

with  fragments  and   fringes  of  the  great  subject. 

They  mention   a  joint   or  a  dish,  a  vintage   or  a 

draught,  but   do  not  harmonize  and    co-ordinate 

even  such  slight  knowledge  of  gastronomy  as  they 

may  be  supposed  to  have  possessed.      In  fact,  the 

subject  was  too  great  for  them,   and  they  wisely 

left   it    to    the    more    adequate   medium  of  prose. 

Among   the   prose-poets  who   have  had    the   true 


154  SEEING   AND    HEARING 

feeling  for  Dinner,  Thackeray  stands  supreme. 
When  he  describes  it  facetiously,  as  in  "The 
Little  Dinner  at  Timmins's "  or  "A  Dinner  in 
the  City,"  he  is  good  ;  but  he  is  far,  far  better 
when  he  treats  a  serious  theme  seriously,  as  in 
"Memorials  of  Gormandizing"  and  "Greenwich 
Whitebait." 

I  assign  the  first  place  to  Thackeray  because 
his  eulogy  is  more  finished,  more  careful,  more 
delicate  ;  but  Sir  Walter  had  a  fine,  free  style, 
a  certain  broadness  of  effect,  in  describing  a 
dinner  which  places  him  high  in  the  list.  Those 
venison  pasties  and  spatchcocked  eels  and  butts 
of  Rhenish  wine  and  stoups  of  old  Canary  which 
figure  so  largely  in  the  historical  novels  still 
make  my  mouth  water.  The  dinner  which  Rob 
Roy  gave  Bailie  Nicol  Jarvie,  though  of  necessity 
cold,  was  well  conceived  ;  and,  barring  the  solan 
goose,  I  should  have  deeply  enjoyed  the  banquet 
at  which  the  Antiquary  entertained  Sir  Arthur 
Wardour.  The  imaginary  feast  which  Caleb 
Balderstone  prepared  for  the  Lord  Keeper  was  so 
good  that  it  deserved  to  be  real.  Dickens,  the 
supreme  exponent  of  High  Tea,  knew  very  little 
about  Dinner,  though  I  remember  a  good  meal  of 
the  bourgeois  type  at  the  house  of  the  Patriarch  in 
"  Little  Dorrit."  Lord  Lytton  dismissed  even  a 
bad  dinner  all  too  curtly  when  he  said  that  "  the 
soup  was  cold,  the  ice  was  hot,  and  everything  in 
the  house  was  sour  except  the  vinegar."     James 


■Sia» 


DINNER  155 

Payn  'left  in  his  one  unsuccessful  book,  "  Melibceus 
in  London,"  the  best  account,  because  the  simplest, 
of  a  Fish-dinner  at  Greenwich  ;  in  that  special 
department  he  is  run  close  by  Lord  Beaconsfield 
in  "  Tancred  "  ;  but  it  is  no  disgrace  to  be  equalled 
or  even  surpassed  by  the  greatest  man  who  ever 
described  a  dinner.  With  Lord  Beaconsfield  gas- 
tronomy was  an  instinct  ;  it  breathes  in  every 
page  of  his  Letters  to  his  Sister.  He  found  a 
roast  swan  "  very  white  and  good."  He  dined 
out  "  to  meet  some  truffles — very  agreeable  com- 
pany.'' At  Sir  Robert  Peel's  he  reported  "  the 
second  course  really  remarkable,"  and  noted  the 
startling  fact  that  Sir  Robert  u  boldly  attacked  his 
turbot  with  his  knife."  It  was  he,  I  believe 
who  said  of  a  rival  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
that  his  soup  was  made  from  "  deferred  stock." 
'Twere  long  to  trace  the  same  generous  enthusi- 
asm for  Dinner  through  all  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
Novels.  He  knew  the  Kitchen  of  the  Past  as  well 
as  of  the  Present.  Lady  Annabel's  Bill  of  Fare  in 
"  Venetia  "  is  a  monument  of  culinary  scholarship. 
Is  there  anything  in  fiction  more  moving  than  the 
agony  of  the  chef  at  Lord  Montacute's  coming 
of  age  ?  "  It  was  only  by  the  most  desperate 
personal  exertions  that  I  rescued  the  souffles.  It 
was  an  affair  of  the  Bridge  of  Areola."  And,  if 
it  be  objected  that  all  these  scenes  belong  to  a 
rather  remote  past,  let  us  take  this  vignette  of  the 
fashionable    solicitor    in    "  Lothair,"    Mr.    Putney 


J 


156  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Giles,  as  he  sits  down  to  dinner  after  a  day  of 
exciting  work  :  "  It  is  a  pleasent  thing  to  see  an 
opulent  and  prosperous  man  of  business,  sanguine 
and  full  of  health  and  a  little  overworked,  at  that 
royal  meal,  Dinner.  How  he  enjoys  his  soup  ! 
And  how  curious  in  his  fish  !  How  critical  in  his 
entree,  and  how  nice  in  his  Welsh  mutton  !  His 
exhausted  brain  rallies  under  the  glass  of  dry 
sherry,  and  he  realizes  all  his  dreams  with  the  aid 
of  claret  that  has  the  true  flavour  of  the  violet." 
"  Doctors,"  said  Thackeray,  who  knew  and  loved 
them,  "  notoriously  dine  well.  When  my  excel- 
lent friend  Sangrado  takes  a  bumper,  and  saying, 
with  a  shrug  and  a  twinkle  of  his  eye,  Video  meliora 
proboque,  Deteriora  sequor,  tosses  off  the  wine,  I 
always  ask  the  butler  for  a  glass  of  that  bottle." 
That  tradition  of  medical  gastronomy  dates  from 
a  remote  period  of  our  history.  u  Culina,"  by 
far  the  richest  Cookery-book  ever  composed,  was 
edited  and  given  to  the  world  in  18 10  by  a 
doctor— "A.  Hunter,  M.D.,  F.R.S."  Dr.  William 
Kitchener  died  in  1827,  but  not  before  his  "  Cook's 
Oracle  "  and  u  Peptic  Precepts  "  had  secured  him 
an  undying  fame.  In  our  own  days,  Sir  Henry 
Thompson's  "  Octaves "  were  the  most  famous 
dinners  in  London,  both  as  regards  food  and 
wine  ;  and  his  "  Food  and  Feeding "  is  the  best 
guide-book  to  greediness  I  know.  But  here  I 
feel  that  I  am  descending  into  details.  "  Dear 
Bob,  I  have  seen  the  mahoganies  of  many  men." 


DINNER 


157 


But  to-day  I  am  treating  of  Dinner  rather  than  of 
dinners — of  the  abstract  Idea  which  has  its  real 
existence  in  a  higher  sphere, — not  of  the  concrete 
forms  in  which  it  is  embodied  on  this  earth. 
Perhaps  further  on  I  may  have  a  word  to  say 
about  "Dinners." 


A 


XXII 
DINNERS 

Sero  sed  serto.  It  is  the  motto  of  the  House  of 
Cecil ;  and  the  late  Lord  Salisbury,  long  detained 
by  business  at  the  Foreign  Office  and  at  length 
sitting  down  to  his  well-earned  dinner,  used  to 
translate  it — "  Unpunctual,  but  hungry."  Such  a 
formula  may  suitably  introduce  the  subject  of  our 
present  meditations  ;  and,  although  that  subject  is 
not  temporary  or  ephemeral,  but  rather  belongs 
to  all  time,  still  at  this  moment  it  is  specially 
opportune.  Sir  James  Crichton-Browne  has  been 
frightening  us  to  death  with  dark  tales  of  physical 
degeneration,  and  he  has  been  heartless  enough 
to  do  so  just  when  we  are  reeling  under  the 
effects  of  Sir  Victor  Horsley's  attack  on  Alcohol. 
Burke,  in  opposing  a  tax  on  gin,  pleaded  that 
"  mankind  have  in  every  age  called  in  some 
material  assistance  to  their  moral  consolation." 
These  modern  men  of  science  tell  us  that  we 
must  by  no  means  call  in  gin  or  any  of  its  more 
genteel  kinsfolk  in  the  great  family  of  Alcohol. 
Water  hardly  seems   to    meet  the  case — besides, 

it  has  typhoid  germs  in   it.     Tea   and  coffee  are 

158 


DINNERS  159 

"  nerve-stimulants,"  and  must  therefore  be  avoided 
by  a  neurotic  generation.  Physical  degeneracy, 
then,  must  be  staved  off  with  food  ;  food,  in  a 
sound  philosophy  of  life,  means  Dinner ;  and 
Dinner,  the  ideal  or  abstraction,  reveals  itself  to 
man  in  the  concrete  form  of  Dinners. 

Having  thus  formulated  my  theme,  I  part  com- 
pany, here  and  now,  with  poets  and  romancists 
and  all  that  dreamy  crew,  and  betake  myself, 
like  Mr.  Gradgrind,  to  facts.  In  loftier  phrase,  I 
pursue  the  historic  method,  and  narrate,  with  the 
accuracy  of  Freeman,  though,  alas  !  without  the 
brilliancy  of  Froude,  some  of  the  actual  dinners 
on  which  mankind  has  lived.  Creasy  wrote  of 
the  "  Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World  " — the 
Fifteen  Decisive  Dinners  of  the  World  would  be 
a  far  more  interesting  theme  ;  but  the  generous 
catalogue  unrolls  its  scroll,  and  "  fifteen "  would 
have  to  be  multiplied  by  ten  or  a  hundred  before 
the  tale  was  told.  A  friend  of  mine  had  a  pious 
habit  of  pasting  into  an  album  the  Menu  of  every 
dinner  at  which  he  had  enjoyed  himself.  Studying 
the  album  retrospectively,  he  used  to  put  an 
asterisk  against  the  most  memorable  of  these 
records.  There  were  three  asterisks  against  the 
Menu  of  a  dinner  given  by  Lord  Lyons  at  the 
British  Embassy  at  Paris.  "  Quails  and  Roman 
Punch,"  said  my  friend  with  tears  in  his  voice. 
"  You  can't  get  beyond  that."  This  evidently 
had  been  one  of  the  Fifteen  Decisive  Dinners  of 


160  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

his  gastronomic  world.  Did  not  the  poet  Young 
exclaim,  in  one  of  his  most  pietistic  "  Night 
Thoughts," 

"The  undevout  Gastronomer  is  mad"? 

Or,  has  an  unintended  "  G  "  crept  into  the  line  ? 

I  treasure  among  my  relics  the  "  Bill  of  Fare  " 
(for  in  those  days  we  talked  English)  of  a  Tavern 
Dinner  for  seven  persons,  triumphantly  eaten  in 
1 75 1.  Including  vegetables  and  dessert,  and  ex- 
cluding beverages,  it  comprises  thirty-eight  items  ; 
and  the  total  cost  was  .£81,  us.  6d.  (without 
counting  the  Waiter).  Twenty  years  later  than 
the  date  of  this  heroic  feast  Dr.  Johnson,  who 
certainly  could  do  most  things  which  required  the 
use  of  a  pen,  vaunted  in  his  overweening  pride 
that  he  could  write  a  cookery-book,  and  not  only 
this,  but  "  a  better  book  of  cookery  than  has  ever 
yet  been  written  ;  it  should  be  a  book  on  philo- 
sophical principles."  The  philosophical  principles 
must  have  been  those  of  the  Stoic  school  if  they 
could  induce  his  readers  or  his  guests  to  endure 
patiently  such  a  dinner  as  he  gave  poor  Bozzy  on 
Easter-day,  1773 — "a  very  good  soup,  a  boiled 
leg  of  lamb  and  spinach,  a  veal  pie,  and  a  rice 
pudding."  One  is  glad  to  know  that  the  soup 
was  good  ;  for,  as  Sir  Henry  Thompson  said  in 
"  Food  and  Feeding,"  "  the  rationale  of  the  initial 
soup  has  been  often  discussed,"  and  the  best 
opinion    is   that   the    function    of    the    soup    is   to 


>-«  ■» 


DINNERS  161 

fortify  the  digestion  against  what  is  to  come.  A 
man  who  is  to  dine  on  boiled  lamb,  veal  pie,  and 
rice  pudding  needs  all  the  fortifying  he  can  get. 
With  some  of  us  it  would  indeed  be  a  "  decisive  " 
dinner — the  last  which  we  should  consume  on 
this  planet. 

True  enjoyment,  as  well  as  true  virtue,  lies  in 
the  Golden  Mean  ;  and,  as  we  round  the  corner 
where  the  eighteenth  century  meets  the  nine- 
teenth, we  begin  to  encounter  a  system  of  dining 
less  profligately  elaborate  than  the  Tavern  Dinner 
of  175 1,  and  yet  less  poisonously  crude  than  Dr. 
Johnson's  Easter  Dinner  of  1773.  The  first  Earl 
of  Dudley  (who  died  in  1833)  disdained  kickshaws, 
and,  with  manly  simplicity,  demanded  only  "  a 
good  soup,  a  small  turbot,  a  neck  of  venison,  duck- 
lings with  green  peas  (or  chicken  with  asparagus), 
and  an  apricot  tart."  Even  more  meagre  was  the 
repast  which  Macaulay  deemed  sufficient  for  his 
own  wants  and  those  of  a  friend  :  "  Ellis  came  to 
dinner  at  seven.  I  gave  him  a  lobster  curry,  wood- 
cock, and  maccaroni."  From  such  frugality,  bor- 
dering on  asceticism,  it  is  a  relief  to  turn  to  the  more 
bounteous  hospitality  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  of  whose 
dinner  the  youthful  Disraeli  wrote:  "It  was  curi- 
ously sumptuous  ;  every  delicacy  of  the  season,  and 
the  second  course,  of  dried  salmon,  olives,  caviare, 
woodcock  pie,  foiegras,  and  every  combination  of 
cured  herring,  &c,  was  really  remarkable."  Yes, 
indeed  !    "  on  dine  remarquablement  chez  vous." 


162  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

After  all,  the  social  life  of  the  capital  naturally 
takes  its  tone  and  manner  from  the  august  centre 
round  which  it  moves.  If  the  Court  dines  well, 
so  do  those  who  frequent  it.  The  legs  of  mutton 
and  apple  dumplings  which  satisfied  the  simple 
taste  of  George  III.  read  now  like  a  horrid  dream. 
Perhaps,  as  the  digestion  and  the  brain  are  so 
closely  connected,  they  helped  to  drive  him  mad. 
His  sons  ate  more  reasonably ;  and,  in  a  later 
generation,  gastronomic  science  in  high  places  was 
quickened  by  the  thoughtful  intelligence  of  Prince 
Albert  directing  the  practical  skill  of  Francatelli 
and  Moret.  Here  is  a  brief  abstract  or  epitome 
of  Queen  Victoria's  dinner  on  the  21st  of  Sep- 
tember 1 84 1.  It  begins  modestly  with  two 
soups  ;  it  goes  on,  more  daringly,  to  four  kinds 
of  fish  ;  four  also  are  the  joints,  followed  (not, 
as  now,  preceded)  by  eight  entrees.  Then  come 
chickens  and  partridges  ;  vegetables,  savouries, 
and  sweets  to  the  number  of  fifteen  :  and,  lest 
any  one  should  still  suffer  from  the  pangs  of  un- 
satiated  desire,  there  were  thoughtfully  placed  on 
the  sideboard  Roast  Beef,  Roast  Mutton,  Haunch 
of  Venison,  Hashed  Venison,  and  Riz  an  consomme. 
But  those  were  famous  days.  Fifty-four  years 
had  sped  their  course,  and  Her  Majesty's  Christ- 
mas Dinner  in  the  year  1895  shows  a  lamentable 
shrinkage.  Three  soups  indeed  there  were,  but 
only  one  fish,  and  that  a  Fried  Sole,  which  can  be 
produced  by  kitchens  less  than  Royal.     To  this 


DINNERS  163 

succeeded  a  beggarly  array  of  four  entrees,  three 
joints,  and  two  sorts  of  game  ;  but  the  Menu  re- 
covers itself  a  little  in  seven  sweet  dishes  ;  while 
the  sideboard  displayed  the  "  Boar's  Head,  Baron 
of  Beef,  and  Woodcock  Pie,"  which  supplied  the 
thrifty  Journalist  with  appropriate  copy  at  every 
Christmas  of  Her  Majesty's  long  reign. 

When  Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli  had  suc- 
ceeded in  "  dishing  the  Whigs "  by  establishing 
Household  Suffrage,  they  and  their  colleagues 
went  with  a  light  heart  and  a  good  conscience  to 
dine  at  the  Ship  Hotel,  Greenwich,  on  the  14th 
of  August  1867.  That  was,  in  some  senses,  a 
"  decisive  "  dinner,  for  it  sealed  the  destruction  of 
the  old  Conservatism  and  inaugurated  the  reign  of 
Tory  Democracy.  The  triumphant  Ministers  had 
turtle  soup,  eleven  kinds  of  fish,  two  entrees,  a 
haunch  of  venison,  poultry,  ham,  grouse,  leverets, 
five  sweet  dishes,  and  two  kinds  of  ice.  Elimin- 
ating the  meat,  this  is  very  much  the  same  sort  of 
dinner  as  that  at  which  Cardinal  Wiseman  was 
entertained  by  his  co-religionists  when  he  assumed 
the  Archbishopric  of  Westminster,  and  I  remem- 
ber that  his  Life,  by  Mr.  Wilfred  Ward,  records 
the  dismay  with  which  his  u  maigre  "  fare  inspired 
more  ascetic  temperaments.  "  He  kept  the  table 
of  a  Roman  Cardinal,  and  surprised  some  Puseyite 
guests  by  four  courses  of  fish  in  Lent."  There 
is  something  very  touching  in  the  exculpatory 
language  of  his  friend  and  disciple  Father  Faber — 


1 64  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

"  The  dear  Cardinal  had  a  Lobster-salad  side  to 
his  character." 

Ever  since  the  days  of  Burns,  the  '*  chiel  amang 
ye  takin'  notes "  has  been  an  unpopular  char- 
acter, and  not  without  reason,  as  the  following 
extract  shows.  Mr.  John  Evelyn  Denison  (after- 
wards Lord  Eversley)  was  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Commons  in  1865,  and  on  the  eve  of  the  opening 
of  the  Session  he  dined,  according  to  custom,  with 
Lord  Palmerston,  then  Prime  Minister  and  Leader 
of  the  House.  Lord  Palmerston  was  in  his  eighty- 
first  year  and  gouty.  Political  issues  of  the  gravest 
importance  hung  on  his  life.  The  Speaker,  like  a 
ruse  old  politician  as  he  was,  kept  a  cold  grey  eye 
on  Palmerston's  performance  at  dinner,  regarding 
it,  rightly,  as  an  index  to  his  state  of  health  ;  and 
this  was  what  he  reported  about  his  host's  capa- 
cities :  "  His  dinner  consisted  of  turtle  soup,  fish, 
patties,  fricandeau,  a  third  entree,  a  slice  of  roast 
mutton,  a  second  slice,  a  slice  of  hard-looking 
ham.  In  the  second  course,  pheasant,  pudding, 
jelly.  At  dessert,  dressed  oranges  and  half  a 
large  pear.  He  drank  seltzer  water  only,  but  late 
in  the  dinner  one  glass  of  sweet  champagne,  and, 
I  think,  a  glass  of  sherry  at  dessert."  This  was  one 
of  the  "  decisive  "  dinners,  for  Palmerston  died  in 
the  following  October.  The  only  wonder  is  that 
he  lived  so  long.  The  dinner  which  killed  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  was  a  cold  pie  and  a  salad. 

"  I   am  not  one  who  much  or  oft  delight "  to 


DINNERS  165 

mingle  the  serious  work  of  Dinner  with  the  frivo- 
lities of  Literature  ;  but  other  people,  more  prone 
to  levity,  are  fond  of  constructing  Bills  of  Fare 
out  of  Shakespeare  ;  and  our  National  Bard  is  so 
copious  in  good  eating  and  drinking  that  a  dozen 
Menus  might  be  bodied  forth  from  his  immortal 
page.  The  most  elaborate  of  these  attempts  took 
place  in  New  York  on  the  23rd  of  April  i860. 
The  Bill  of  Fare  lies  before  me  as  I  write.  It 
contains  twenty-four  items,  and  an  appropriate 
quotation  is  annexed  to  each.  The  principal  joint 
was  Roast  Lamb,  and  to  this  is  attached  the  tag — 

" Innocent 
As  is  the  sucking  lamb." 

When  the  late  Professor  Thorold  Rogers,  an 
excellent  Shakespearean,  saw  this  citation,  he  ex- 
claimed, "  That  was  an  opportunity  missed.  They 
should  have  put — 

'  So  young,  and  so  untender ! '  " 


XXIII 

LUNCHEON 

"  Munch  on,  crunch  on,  take  your  nuncheon, 
Breakfast,  dinner,  supper,  luncheon  ! '' 

So  sings,  or  says,  Robert  Browning  in  his  ditty 
of  the  Pied  Piper,  and  it  is  to  be  remarked  that 
he  was  not  driven  to  invent  the  word  "  nuncheon  " 
by  the  necessity  of  finding  a  rhyme  for  "  luncheon," 
for  "  puncheon  "  was  ready  to  his  hand,  and  "  nun- 
cheon "  was  not  a  creation,  but  an  archaism,  de- 
fined by  Johnson  as  "food  eaten  between  meals." 
Let  no  one  who  perpends  the  amazing  dinners 
eaten  by  our  forefathers  accuse  those  good  men 
of  gluttony.  Let  us  rather  bethink  ourselves  of 
their  early  and  unsatisfying  breakfasts,  their  lives 
of  strenuous  labour,  their  ignorance  of  five  o'clock 
tea ;  and  then  thank  the  goodness  and  the  grace 
which  on  our  birth  have  smiled,  and  have  given  us 
more  frequent  meals  and  less  ponderous  dinners. 
Lord  John  Russell  (i 792-1 878)  published  anony- 
mously in  1820  a  book  of  Essays  and  Sketches 
"  by  a  Gentleman  who  has  left  his  Lodgings."  On 
the  usages  of  polite  society  at  the  time   no   one 

was  better  qualified  to  speak,  for  Woburn  Abbey 

166 


LUNCHEON  167 

was  his  home,  and  at  Bowood  and  Holland  House 
he  was  an  habitual  guest  ;  and  this  is  his  testimony 
to  the  dining  habits  of  society  :  "  The  great  in- 
convenience of  a  London  life  is  the  late  hour  of 
dinner.  To  pass  the  day  impransus  and  then  to 
sit  down  to  a  great  dinner  at  eight  o'clock  is 
entirely  against  the  first  dictates  of  common  sense 
and  common  stomachs.  Women,  however,  are 
not  so  irrational  as  men,  and  generally  sit  down 
to  a  substantial  luncheon  at  three  or  four  ;  if  men 
would  do  the  same,  the  meal  at  night  might  be 
lightened  of  many  of  its  weighty  dishes  and  con- 
versation would  be  no  loser."  So  far,  Luncheon 
(or  Nuncheon)  would  seem  to  be  exclusively  a 
ladies'  meal  ;  and  yet  Dr.  Kitchener  could  not  have 
been  prescribing  for  ladies  only  when  he  gave 
his  surprising  directions  for  a  luncheon  "  about 
twelve,"  which  might  "  consist  of  a  bit  of  roasted 
Poultry,  a  basin  of  Beef  Tea  or  Eggs  poached  or 
boiled  in  the  shell,  Fish  plainly  dressed,  or  a  Sand- 
wich ;  stale  Bread,  and  half  a  pint  of  good  Home- 
brewed Beer,  or  Toast  and  Water,  with  about  one 
fourth  or  one-third  part  of  its  measure  of  Wine,  of 
which  Port  is  preferred,  or  one-seventh  of  Brandy." 
In  Miss  Austen's  books,  Luncheon  is  dismissed 
under  the  cursory  appellation  of  "  Cold  Meat," 
and  Madeira  and  water  seems  to  have  been  its 
accompaniment  ;  but  more  prodigal  methods  soon 
began  to  creep  in.  The  repast  which  Sam  Weller 
pronounced    "  a   wery  good    notion    of    a   lunch " 


168  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

consisted  of  veal  pie,  bread,  knuckle  of  ham,  cold 
beef,  beer,  and  cold  punch  ;  and  let  it  be  observed 
in  passing  that,  had  he  used  the  word  "  lunch  "  in 
polite  society,  the  omission  of  the  second  syllable 
would  have  been  severely  reprehended  by  a  gener- 
ation which  still  spoke  of  the  "  omnibus  "  and  had 
only  just  discontinued  "  cabriolet."  The  verb  "  to 
lunch "  was  even  more  offensive  than  the  sub- 
stantive from  which  it  was  derived  ;  and  Lord 
Beaconsfield,  describing  the  Season  of  1832,  says 
that  u  ladies  were  luncheoning  on  Perigord  pie, 
or  coursing  in  whirling  britskas."  To  Perigord 
pies  as  a  luncheon  dish  for  the  luxurious  and 
eupeptic  may  be  added  venison  pasties — 

"  Now  broach  me  a  cask  of  Malvoisie, 
Bring  pasty  from  the  doe," 

said  the  Duchess  in  "  Coningsby."  "  That  has 
been  my  luncheon — a  poetic  repast."  And  Lady 
St.  Jerome,  when  she  took  Lothair  to  a  picnic,  fed 
him  with  lobster  sandwiches  and  Chablis.  Fiction 
is  ever  the  mirror  of  fact  ;  and  a  lady  still  living, 
who  published  her  Memoirs  only  a  year  or  two 
ago,  remembers  the  Lady  Holland  who  patronized 
Macaulay  "  sitting  at  a  beautiful  luncheon  of  cold 
turkey  and  summer  salad." 

But,  in  spite  of  all  these  instances,  Luncheon 
was  down  to  1840  or  thereabouts  a  kind  of  clan- 
destine and  unofficial  meal.  The  ladies  wanted 
something  to  keep  them  up.      It  was  nicer  for  the 


LUNCHEON  169 

children  than  having  their  dinner  in  the  nursery. 
Papa  would  be  kept  at  the  House  by  an  impending 
division,  and  must  get  a  snack  when  he  could — 
and  so  on  and  so  forth.  If  a  man  habitually  sate 
down  to  luncheon,  and  ate  it  through,  he  was 
contemned  as  unversed  in  the  science  of  feeding. 
"  Luncheon  is  a  reflection  on  Breakfast  and  an 
insult  to  Dinner  ; "  and  moreover  it  stamped  the 
eater  as  an  idler.  No  one  who  had  anything  to 
do  could  find  time  for  a  square  meal  in  the 
middle  of  the  day.  When  Mr.  Gladstone  was  at 
the  Board  of  Trade,  his  only  luncheon  consisted 
of  an  Abernethy  biscuit  which  Mrs.  Gladstone 
brought  down  to  the  office  and  forced  on  the 
reluctant  Vice-President. 

But  after  1840  a  change  set  in.  Prince  Albert 
was  notoriously  fond  of  luncheon,  and  Queen 
Victoria  humoured  him.  They  dined  late,  and 
the  Luncheon  at  the  Palace  became  a  very  real 
and  fully  recognized  meal.  At  it  the  Queen 
sometimes  received  her  friends,  as  witness  the 
Royal  Journal — "  Mamma  came  to  luncheon  with 
her  lady  and  gentleman."  It  could  not  have 
been  pleasant  for  the  "lady  and  gentleman,"  but 
it  established  the  practice. 

"  Sunday  luncheon  "  was  always  a  thing  apart. 
For  some  reason  not  altogether  clear,  but  either 
because  devotion  long  sustained  makes  a  strong 
demand  on  the  nervous  system  or  because  a 
digestive    nap    was    the    best    way    of    employing 


170  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Sunday  afternoon,  men  who  ate  no  luncheon  on 
week-days  devoured  Roast  Beef  and  Yorkshire 
Pudding  on  Sundays  and  had  their  appropriate 
reward.  Bishop  Wilberforce,  whose  frank  self- 
communings  are  always  such  delightful  reading, 
wrote  in  his  diary  for  Sunday,  October  27,  1861  : 
"  Preached  in  York  Minster.  Very  large  con- 
gregation. Back  to  Bishopthorpe.  Sleepy,  eheu, 
at  afternoon  service  ;  must  eat  no  luncheon  on 
Sunday."  When  Luncheon  had  once  firmly  estab- 
lished itself,  not  merely  as  a  meal  but  as  an 
institution,  Sunday  luncheons  in  London  became 
recognized  centres  of  social  life.  Where  there 
was  even  a  moderate  degree  of  intimacy  a  guest 
might  drop  in  and  be  sure  of  mayonnaise,  chicken, 
and  welcome.  I  well  remember  an  occasion  of 
this  kind  when  I  saw  social  Presence  of  Mind 
exemplified,  as  I  thought  and  think,  on  an  heroic 
scale.  Luncheon  was  over.  It  had  not  been  a 
particularly  bounteous  meal  ;  the  guests  had  been 
many  ;  the  chicken  had  been  eaten  to  the  drum- 
stick and  the  cutlets  to  the  bone.  Nothing  re- 
mained but  a  huge  Trifle,  of  chromatic  and 
threatening  aspect,  on  which  no  one  had  ventured 
to  embark.  Coffee  was  just  coming,  when  the 
servant  entered  with  an  anxious  expression,  and 
murmured  to  the  hostess  that  Monsieur  Petitpois 
— a  newly  arrived  French  attach^ — had  come 
and  seemed  to  expect  luncheon.  The  hostess 
grasped   the   situation   in  an    instant,    and   issued 


LUNCHEON  171 

her  commands  with  a  promptitude  and  a  direct- 
ness which  the  Duke  of  Wellington  could  not  have 
surpassed.  lt  Clear  everything  away,  but  leave 
the  Trifle.  Then  show  M.  Petitpois  in."  Enter 
Petitpois.  "  Delighted  to  see  you.  Quite  right. 
Always  at  home  at  Sunday  luncheon.  Pray  come 
and  sit  here  and  have  some  Trifle.  It  is  our 
national  Sunday  dish."  Poor  young  Petitpois, 
actuated  by  the  same  principle  which  made  the 
Prodigal  desire  the  husks,  filled  himself  with 
sponge-cake,  jam,  and  whipped  cream ;  and  went 
away  looking  rather  pale.  If  he  kept  a  journal, 
he  no  doubt  noted  the  English  Sunday  as  one  of 
our  most  curious  institutions,  and  the  Trifle  as  its 
crowning  horror. 

Cardinal  Manning,  as  all  the  world  knows, 
never  dined.  "  I  never  eat  and  I  never  drink," 
said  the  Cardinal.  "  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  cannot. 
I  like  dinner  society  very  much.  You  see  the 
world,  and  you  hear  things  which  you  do  not 
hear  otherwise."  Certainly  that  Cardinal  was  a  fic- 
titious personage,  but  he  was  drawn  with  fidelity 
from  Cardinal  Manning,  who  ate  a  very  comfort- 
able dinner  at  two  o'clock,  called  it  luncheon, 
and  maintained  his  principle.  There  have  always 
been  some  houses  where  the  luncheons  were  much 
more  famous  than  the  dinners.  Dinner,  after  all, 
is  something  of  a  ceremony :  it  requires  fore- 
thought, care,  and  organization.  Luncheon  is  more 
of  a   scramble,  and,  in  the  case  of    a  numerous 


172  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

and  scattered  family,  it  is  the  pleasantest  of  re- 
unions. "  When  all  the  daughters  are  married 
nobody  eats  luncheon,"  said  Lothair  to  his 
solicitor,  Mr.  Putney  Giles  :  but  Mr.  Putney  Giles, 
"  who  always  affected  to  know  everything,  and 
generally  did,"  replied  that,  even  though  the 
daughters  were  married,  "  the  famous  luncheons 
at  Crecy  House  would  always  go  on  and  be  a 
popular  mode  of  their  all  meeting."  When  Lord 
Beaconsfield  wrote  that  passage  he  was  thinking 
of  Chesterfield  House,  May  Fair,  some  twenty 
years  before  Lord  Burton  bought  it.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, who  thought  modern  luxury  rather  disgust- 
ing, used  to  complain  that  nowadays  life  in  a 
country  house  meant  three  dinners  a  day,  and  if 
you  reckoned  sandwiches  and  poached  eggs  at 
five  o'clock  tea,  nearly  four.  Indeed,  the  only 
difference  that  I  can  perceive  between  a  modern 
luncheon  and  a  modern  dinner  is  that  at  the 
former  meal  you  don't  have  soup  or  a  printed 
menu.  But  at  a  luncheon  at  the  Mansion  House 
you  have  both  ;  so  it  is  well  for  Lord  Mayors 
that  their  reigns  are  brief. 

One  touch  of  personal  reminiscence  may  close 
this  study.  While  yet  the  Old  Bailey  stood  erect 
and  firm,  as  grim  in  aspect  as  in  association,  I 
used  often,  through  the  courtesy  of  a  civic  official, 
to  share  the  luncheon  of  the  judge  and  the 
aldermen,  eaten  during  an  interval  in  the  trial,  in 
a  gloomy  chamber  behind  the  Bench.     I  still  see, 


LUNCHEON  173 

in  my  mind's  eye,  a  learned  judge,  long  since  gone 
to  his  account,  stuffing  cold  beef  and  pigeon  pie, 
and  quaffing  London  stout,  black  as  Erebus  and 
heavy  as  lead.  After  this  repast  he  went  back 
into  Court  (where  he  never  allowed  a  window  to 
be  opened)  and  administered  what  he  called 
justice  through  the  long  and  lethargic  afternoon. 
No  one  who  had  witnessed  the  performance 
could  doubt  the  necessity  for  a  Court  of  Criminal 
Appeal. 


XXIV 
TEA 

Few,  I  fear,  are  the  readers  of  Mrs.  Sherwood. 
Yet  in  "  The  Fairchild  Family  "  she  gave  us  some 
pictures  of  English  country  life  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  which  neither  Jane  Austen  nor  Mrs. 
Gaskell  ever  beat,  and  at  least  one  scene  of  horror 
which  is  still  unsurpassed.  I  cannot  say  as  much 
for  "  Henry  Milner,  or  the  Story  of  a  Little  Boy 
who  was  not  brought  up  according  to  the  Fashions 
of  this  World."  No,  indeed — very  far  from  it. 
And  Henry  now  recurs  to  my  mind  only  because, 
in  narrating  his  history,  Mrs.  Sherwood  archly  in- 
troduces a  sentence  which  may  serve  as  a  motto 
for  this  meditation.  Like  Bismarck  (though  un- 
like him  in  other  respects),  she  was  fond  of 
parading  scraps  of  a  rather  bald  Latinity ;  and, 
in  this  particular  instance,  she  combines  simple 
scholarship  with  staid  humour,  making  her  hero 
exclaim  to  a  tea-making  lady,  "  Non  possum  vivere 
sine  Te."  The  play  on  Te  and  Tea  will  be  re- 
marked as  very  ingenious.  Barring  the  Latinity 
and  the  jest,  I  am  at  one  with  Mrs.  Sherwood  in 
the  sentiment,    "  My  heart  leaps  up  when   I   be- 

J74 


TEA  175 

hold  "  a  teapot,  like  Wordsworth's  when  he  beheld 
a  rainbow ;  and  the  mere  mention  of  tea  in  liter- 
ature stirs  in  me  thoughts  which  lie  too  deep  for 
words.  Thus  I  look  forward  with  the  keenest 
interest  to 

THE    BOOK    OF    TEA 

By  Okakura-Kakuzo 

which  the  publishers  promise  at  an  early  date. 
Solemn  indeed,  as  befits  the  subject,  is  the  pre- 
liminary announcement  : — 

"This  book  in  praise  of  tea,  written  by  a 
Japanese,  will  surely  find  sympathetic  readers  in 
England,  where  the  custom  of  tea-drinking  has 
become  so  important  a  part  of  the  national  daily 
life.  Mr.  Kakuzo  shows  that  the  English  are  still 
behind  the  Japanese  in  their  devotion  to  tea.  In 
England  afternoon  tea  is  variously  regarded  as  a 
fashionable  and  luxurious  aid  to  conversation,  a 
convenient  way  of  passing  the  time,  or  a  restful 
and  refreshing  pause  in  the  day's  occupation,  but 
in  Japan  tea-drinking  is  ennobled  into  Teaism,  and 
the  English  cup  of  tea  seems  trivial  by  comparison." 

This  is  the  right  view  of  Tea.  The  wrong  view 
was  lately  forced  into  sad  prominence  in  the 
Coroner's  Court : — 

Dangers  of  Tea-Drinking 

"  In  summing  up  at  a  Hackney  inquest  on 
Saturday,  Dr.  Wynn  Westcott,  the  coroner,  com- 


176  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

mented  on  the  fact  that  deceased,  a  woman  of 
twenty-nine,  had  died  suddenly  after  a  meal  of 
steak,  tomatoes,  and  tea.  One  of  the  most  in- 
judicious habits,  he  said,  was  to  drink  tea  with  a 
meat  meal.  Tea  checked  the  flow  of  the  gastric 
juice  which  was  necessary  to  digestion.  He  was 
sorry  if  that  went  against  teetotal  doctrines,  but  if 
people  must  be  teetotallers  they  had  best  drink 
water  and  not  tea  with  their  meals." 

My  present  purpose  is  to  enquire  whether  the 
right  or  the  wrong  view  has  more  largely  predomi- 
nated in  English  history  and  literature.  If,  after 
the  manner  of  a  German  commentator,  I  were 
to  indulge  in  "  prolegomena "  about  the  history, 
statistics,  and  chemical  analysis  of  Tea,  I  should 
soon  overflow  my  limits  ;  and  I  regard  a  pain- 
fully well-known  couplet  in  which  "  tea  "  rhymes 
with  "  obey  "  as  belonging  to  that  class  of  quota- 
tions which  no  self-respecting  writer  can  again 
resuscitate.  Perhaps  a  shade,  though  only  a  shade, 
less  hackneyed  is  Cowper's  tribute  to  the  divine 
herb  : — 

"  Now  stir  the  fire,  and  close  the  shutters  fast, 
Let  fall  the  curtains,  wheel  the  sofa  round, 
And,  while  the  bubbling  and  loud-hissing  urn 
Throws  up  a  steamy  column,  and  the  cups, 
That  cheer  but  not  inebriate,  wait  on  each, 
So  let  us  welcome  peaceful  evening  in." 

But  this  really  leaves  the  problem  unsolved. 
Cowper  drank  tea,  and  drank  it  in  the  evening  ; 


TEA  177 

but  whether  he  "  had  anything  with  it,"  as  the 
phrase  is,  remains  uncertain.  Bread  and  butter, 
I  think,  he  must  have  had,  or  toast,  or  what 
Thackeray  scoffs  at  as  the  "blameless  muffin"; 
but  I  doubt  about  eggs,  and  feel  quite  sure  that 
he  did  not  mingle  meat  and  tea.  So  much  for 
1795,  and  I  fancy  that  the  practice  of  1816  (when 
"  Emma  "  was  published)  was  not  very  different. 
When  Mrs.  Bates  went  to  spend  the  evening 
with  Mr.  Woodhouse  there  was  "  vast  deal 
of  chat,  and  backgammon,  and  tea  was  made 
downstairs "  ;  but,  though  the  passage  is  a 
little  obscure,  I  am  convinced  that  the  "  biscuits 
and  baked  apples "  were  not  served  with  the 
tea,  but  came  in  later  with  the  ill-fated  "  fricassee 
of  sweetbread  and  asparagus."  Lord  Beacons- 
field,  who  was  born  in  1804,  thus  describes  the 
evening  meal  at  "Hurstley" — a  place  drawn  in 
detail  from  his  early  home  in  Buckinghamshire  : 
"Then  they  were  summoned  to  tea.  .  .  .  The 
curtains  were  drawn  and  the  room  lighted  ; 
an  urn  hissed  ;  there  were  piles  of  bread  and 
butter,  and  a  pyramid  of  buttered  toast."  And, 
when  the  family  from  the  Hall  went  to  tea  at  the 
Rectory,  they  found  '/  the  tea-equipage  a  picture 
of  abundance  and  refinement.  Such  pretty  china, 
and  such  various  and  delicious  cakes !  White 
bread,  and  brown  bread,  and  plum  cakes,  and  seed 
cakes,  and  no  end  of  cracknels,  and  toasts,  dry 
or  buttered."      Still  here  is  no  mention  of  animal 

M 


178  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

foods,  and  even  Dr.  Wynn  Westcott  would  have 
found  nothing  to  condemn.  The  same  refined 
tradition  meets  us  in  "  Cranford,"  which,  as  we  all 
know  from  its  reference  to  "  Pickwick,"  describes 
the  social  customs  of  1836-7.  Mrs.  Jameson  was 
the  Queen  of  Society  in  Cranford,  and,  when  she 
gave  a  tea-party,  the  herb  was  reinforced  only  by 
"  very  thin  bread  and  butter,"  and  Miss  Barker 
was  thought  rather  vulgar — "  a  tremendous  word 
in  Cranford  " — because  she  gave  seed  cake  as  well. 
Even  in  "  Pickwick  "  itself,  though  that  immortal 
book  does  not  pretend  to  depict  the  manners  of 
polite  society,  the  tea  served  in  the  sanctum  of  the 
"  Marquis  of  Granby  "  at  Dorking  was  flanked  by 
nothing  more  substantial  than  a  plate  of  hot 
buttered  toast. 

Impressive,  therefore,  almost  startling,  is  the 
abrupt  transition  from  these  ill-supported  teas 
(which,  according  to  Dr.  Wynn  Westcott,  were 
hygienically  sound)  to  the  feast,  defiant  of  all  gas- 
tronomic law,  which  Mrs.  Snagsby  spread  for  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Chadband — "  Dainty  new  bread,  crusty 
twists,  cool  fresh  butter,  thin  slices  of  ham,  tongue, 
and  German  sausage,  delicate  little  rows  of  an- 
chovies nestling  in  parsley,  new-laid  eggs  brought 
up  warm  in  a  napkin,  and  hot  buttered  toast." 
German  sausage  washed  down  with  tea  !  What, 
oh  what,  would  the  Coroner  say  ?  And  what 
must  be  the  emotions  of  the  waiters  at  the  House 
of   Commons,    with  their  traditions  of  Bellamy's 


TEA  179 

veal  pies  and  Mr.  Disraeli's  port,  when  they  see 
the  Labour  Members  sit  down  to  a  refection  of 
Tea  and  Brawn  ?  But,  it  may  be  urged,  Medical 
Science  is  always  shifting  its  ground,  and  what  is 
the  elixir  of  life  to-day  may  be  labelled  Poison 
to-morrow.  Thus  Thackeray,  using  his  keenest 
art  to  stigmatize  the  unwholesome  greediness  of 
a  City  Dinner,  describes  the  surfeited  guests 
adjourning  after  dinner  to  the  Tea  Room,  and 
there  "  drinking  slops  and  eating  buttered  muffins 
until  the  grease  trickled  down  their  faces."  This 
was  written  in  1847  ;  but  in  1823  the  great  Dr. 
Kitchener,  both  physician  and  gastronomer,  pro- 
nounces thus — "  Tea  after  Dinner  assists  Digestion, 
quenches  Thirst,  and  thereby  exhilarates  the 
Spirits,"  and  he  suggests  as  an  acceptable  alter- 
native "a  little  warmed  Milk,  with  a  teaspoonful 
of  Rum,  a  bit  of  Sugar,  and  a  little  Nutmeg." 
Truly  our  forefathers  must  have  had  remarkable 
digestions. 

"These  be  black  Vespers'  pageants."  I  have 
spoken  so  far  of  Tea  in  the  evening.  When  did 
people  begin  to  drink  Tea  in  the  morning  ?  I 
seem  to  remember  that,  in  our  earlier  romancists 
and  dramatists,  Coffee  is  the  beverage  for  break- 
fast. Certainly  it  is  so — and  inimitably  described 
as  well  —  in  Lord  Beaconsfield's  account  of  a 
Yorkshire  breakfast  in  «  Sybil."  At  Holland 
House,  which  was  the  very  ark  and  sanctuary  of 
luxury,  Macaulay   in    1831   breakfasted  on  "very 


180  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

good  coffee  and  very  good  tea,  and  very  good 
eggs,  butter  kept  in  the  midst  of  ice,  and  hot 
rolls."  Here  the  two  liquids  are  proffered,  but 
meat  is  rigidly  excluded,  and  Dr.  Wynn  Westcott's 
law  of  life  observed.  But  nine  years  later  the 
character  of  breakfast  had  altered,  and  altered 
in  an  unwholesome  direction.  The  increasing 
practice  of  going  to  Scotland  for  the  shooting 
season  had  familiarized  Englishmen  with  the  more 
substantial  fare  of  the  Scotch  breakfast,  and  since 
that  time  the  unhallowed  combination  of  meat 
and  tea  has  been  the  law  of  our  English  breakfast- 
table.  Sir  Thomas  in  the  "  Ingoldsby  Legends," 
on  the  morning  of  his  mysterious  disappearance, 
had  eaten  for  breakfast  some  bacon,  an  egg,  a 
little  broiled  haddock,  and  a  slice  of  cold  beef. 

"  And  then — let  me  see ! — he  had  two,  perhaps  three, 
Cups  (with  sugar  and  cream)  of  strong  gunpowder  tea, 
With  a  spoonful  in  each  of  some  choice  eau  de  vie, 
Which  with  nine  out  of  ten  would  perhaps  disagree.'' 

The  same  trait  may  be  remembered  in  the  case  of 
Mrs.  Finching,  who,  though  she  had  cold  fowl 
and  broiled  ham  for  breakfast,  "  measured  out  a 
spoonful  or  two  of  some  brown  liquid  that  smelt 
like  brandy  and  put  it  into  her  tea,  saying  that  she 
was  obliged  to  be  careful  to  follow  the  directions 
of  her  medical  man,  though  the  flavour  was  any- 
thing but  agreeable." 

Time    passes,   and    the    subject    expands.     We 


TEA  181 

have  spoken  of  Tea  in  the  morning  and  Tea  in 
the  evening.  To  these  must  be  added,  if  the  topic 
were  to  be  treated  with  scientific  completeness, 
that  early  cup  which  opens  our  eyes,  as  each  new 
day  dawns,  on  this  world  of  opportunity  and 
wonder,  and  that  last  dread  draught  with  which 
the  iron  nerves  of  Mr.  Gladstone  were  composed 
to  sleep  after  a  late  night  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  But  I  have  no  space  for  these  divaga- 
tions, and  must  crown  this  imperfect  study  of 
Tea  with  the  true,  though  surprising,  statement 
that  I  myself — mot  qui  vous  park — have  known 
the  inventor  of  Five  o'Clock  Tea.  This  was  Anna 
Maria  Stanhope,  daughter  of  the  third  Earl  of 
Harrington  and  wife  of  the  seventh  Duke  of 
Bedford.  She  died  at  an  advanced  age — rouged 
and  curled  and  trim  to  the  last — in  1857  ;  but 
not  before  her  life's  work  was  accomplished  and 
Five  o'Clock  Tea  established  among  the  perma- 
nent institutions  of  our  free  and  happy  country. 
Surely  she  is  worthier  of  a  place  in  the  Positivist 
Kalendar  of  those  who  have  benefited  Humanity 
than  Hippocrates,  Harvey,  or  Arkwright  ;  and  yet 
Sir  Algernon  West  writes  thus  in  his  book  of 
"  Recollections  "  :  "  Late  in  the  'forties  and  in  the 
'fifties,  Five  o'Clock  Teas  were  just  coming  into 
vogue,  the  old  Duchess  of  Bedford's  being,  as  I 
considered,  very  dreary  festivities."  Such  is  grati- 
tude, and  such  is  fame. 


XXV 

SUPPER 

"  S  is  the  Supper,  where  all  went  in  pairs ; 
T  is  the  Twaddle  they  talked  on  the  stairs." 

Though  the  merry  muse  of  dear  "  C.  S.  C."  may 
thus  serve  to  introduce  our  subject,  the  repast 
which  he  has  in  view  is  only  a  very  special  and 
peculiar — one  had  almost  said  an  unnatural — 
form  of  Supper.  The  Ball  Supper,  eaten  any- 
where between  12  o'clock  and  2  A.M.,  is  clearly  a 
thing  apart  from  the  Supper  which,  in  days  of 
Early  Dinner,  made  England  great.  Yet  the  Ball 
Supper  had  its  charms,  and  they  have  been  cele- 
brated both  in  prose  and  in  verse.  Byron  knew 
all  about  them  : — 

"  I've  seen  some  balls  and  revels  in  my  time, 
And  stay'd  them  over  for  some  silly  reason." 

One  of  those  reasons  was  the  prospect  of  supping 
with  Bessie  Rawdon,1  the  only  girl  he  ever  saw 

"  Whose  bloom  could  after  dancing  dare  the  dawn." 

In    her   society  a   fresh    zest   was  added   to   "  the 

1  Afterwards  Lady  William  Russell. 
182 


SUPPER  183 

lobster   salad,  and    champagne,  and  chat "  which 
the  poet  loved  so  well. 

Fifty  years  had  passed,  and  a  Ball  Supper  was 
(and  for  all  I  know  may  still  be)  much  the  same. 
"  The  bright  moments  flew  on.  Suddenly  there 
was  a  mysterious  silence  in  the  hall,  followed  by  a 
kind  of  suppressed  stir.  Every  one  seemed  to  be 
speaking  with  bated  breath,  or,  if  moving,  walking 
on  tiptoe.      It  was  the  supper-hour — 

'  Soft  hour  which  wakes  the  wish  and  melts  the  heart.' 

'What  a  perfect  family  !'  exclaimed  Hugo  Bohun 
as  he  extracted  a  couple  of  fat  little  birds  from 
their  bed  of  aspic  jelly.  '  Everything  they  do  in 
such  perfect  taste  !  How  safe  you  were  here 
to  have  ortolans  for  supper  ! ' "  But,  after  all, 
Ball  Suppers  are  frivolities,  and  College  Suppers 
scarcely  more  serious  ;  although  a  modern  bard 
has  endeavoured  to  give  them  a  classical  sanction 
by  making  young  Horace  at  the  University  of 
Athens  thus  address  himself  to  his  new  acquaint- 
ance Balbus  : — 

"  A  friend  has  sent  me  half-a-dozen  brace 
Of  thrush  and  blackbird  from  a  moor  in  Thrace. 
These  we  will  have  for  supper,  with  a  dish 
Of  lobster-patties  and  a  cuttle-fish." 

And  we  may  be  sure  that  a  meal  where  Horace 
was  host  was  not  unaccompanied  by  wine  and 
song. 

But   the  Supper  which   I  have  in  mind  is  the 


1 84  SEEING   AND    HEARING 

substantial  meal  which,  during  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth, 
formed  the  nightly  complement  to  the  com- 
paratively early  dinner.  "  High  Tea "  such  as 
Dickens  loved  and  described — "  Bagman's  Tea," 
as  I  was  taught  to  call  it, — became  popular  as 
tea  became  cheaper.  You  dined,  say,  at  one,  and 
drank  tea  (and  ate  accompaniments)  at  seven. 
But  Supper,  eaten  at  nine  or  ten  o'clock,  was  a 
more  substantial  affair,  and  the  poison  of  Tea,  so 
much  deprecated  by  our  modern  Coroners,  was 
never  suffered  to  pollute  it.  In  the  account  of  a 
supper  in  1770  I  have  read  this  exhilarating  item: 
"  A  turtle  was  sent  as  a  Present  to  the  Company 
and  dress'd  in  a  very  high  Gout,  after  the  West 
Indian  manner  ;  "  and  such  a  dish,  eaten  at  bed- 
time, of  course  required  vinous  assistance.  A 
forefather  of  my  own  noted  in  his  diary  for  1788, 
"  The  man  who  superintends  Mrs.  Cazalan's  of 
New  Cavendish  Street  suppers  has  a  salary  of 
.£100  a  year  for  his  trouble  ;"  and  one  may  rest 
assured  that  Mrs.  Cazalan's  guests  drank  some- 
thing more  exhilarating  than  tea  at  her  famous 
supper-table.  u  Guy  Mannering  "  depicts  the  habits 
of  Scotch  Society  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century  ;  and  Counsellor  Pleydell,  coming  hungry 
from  a  journey,  suggests  that  a  brace  of  wild 
ducks  should  be  added  to  the  "  light  family 
supper."  These  he  ate  "  without  prejudice  to  a 
subsequent  tart,"  and  with  these  viands  he  drank 


SUPPER  185 

ale  and  Burgundy,  moralizing  thus  :  "  I  love  the 
Coena,  the  supper  of  the  ancients,  the  pleasant  meal 
and  social  glass  that  washes  out  of  one's  mind 
the  cobwebs  that  business  or  gloom  have  been 
spinning  in  our  brains  all  day."  On  the  point  of 
precedent,  the  Counsellor,  or  rather  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  is  at  issue  with  Lord  John  Russell,  who 
said,  in  protesting  against  dinner  at  eight  o'clock  : 
"  Some  learned  persons,  indeed,  endeavour  to 
support  this  practice  by  precedent,  and  quote  the 
Roman  Supper  ;  but  those  suppers  were  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  ought  to  be  a  subject 
of  contempt  instead  of  imitation  in  Grosvenor 
Square."  Supper  at  three  in  the  afternoon  !  I 
must  leave  this  startling  statement  to  the  investiga- 
tions of  Dryasdust.  At  the  same  period  as  that 
at  which  the  Whig  Essayist,  not  yet  statesman, 
was  protesting  against  late  dinners,  Sydney  Smith 
was  bewailing  the  effects  of  supper  on  the  mind 
and  temper  : — 

"  My  friend  sups  late ;  he  eats  some  strong 
soup,  then  a  lobster,  then  some  tart,  and  he  dilutes 
these  esculent  varieties  with  wine.  The  next  day 
I  call  upon  him.  He  is  going  to  sell  his  house  in 
London  and  retire  into  the  country.  He  is 
alarmed  for  his  eldest  daughter's  health.  His  ex- 
penses are  hourly  increasing,  and  nothing  but  a 
timely  retreat  can  save  him  from  ruin.  All  this 
is  lobster ;  and,  when  over-excited  nature  has  had 
time  to  manage  this  testaceous  incumbrance,  the 


186  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

daughter  recovers,  the  finances  are  in  good  order, 
and  every  rural  idea  is  effectually  excluded  from 
the  mind." 

I  take  due  note  of  the  word  wine,  but  I  believe 
it  was  usually  mixed  with  water.  Of  Mr.  Pitt, 
not  a  model  of  abstemiousness,  it  is  recorded  that 
he  drank  "  a  good  deal  of  port  wine  and  water  at 
supper "  ;  and  Mr.  Woodhouse,  whom  his  worst 
enemy  never  accused  of  excess,  recommended  Mrs. 
Goddard  to  have  "  half  a  glass  of  wine,  a  small 
half-glass,  in  a  tumbler  of  water,"  as  an  accom- 
paniment to  the  minced  chicken  and  scalloped 
oysters.  Dr.  Kitchener,  who  was  a  practising 
physician  as  well  as  a  writer  on  Gastronomy,  re- 
commended for  Supper  "  a  Biscuit,  or  a  Sandwich, 
or  a  bit  of  Cold  Fowl,  and  a  Glass  of  Beer,  or 
Wine,  and  Toast  and  Water  "  ;  or  for  "  such  as 
dine  very  late,  Gruel  or  a  little  Bread  and  Cheese, 
or  Powdered  Cheese,  and  a  glass  of  Beer."  They 
vaunt  that  medicine  is  a  progressive  science,  but 
where  is  the  practitioner  to-day  who  would  ven- 
ture on  these  heroic  prescriptions  of  1825  ? 

I  am  accused  of  quoting  too  often  from  Lord 
Beaconsfield  ;  and,  though  I  demur  to  the  word 
li  too,"  I  admit  that  I  quote  from  him  very  often, 
because  no  writer  whom  I  know  scanned  so  care- 
fully and  noted  so  exactly  the  social  phenomena 
of  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  Here  is  his 
description  of  Supper  in  the  year  1835  : — 

"  When   there   were   cards  there  was  always  a 


SUPPER  187 

little  supper — a  lobster,  and  a  roasted  potato, 
and  that  sort  of  easy  thing,  with  curious  drinks  ; 
and,  on  fitting  occasions,  a  bottle  of  champagne 
appeared." 

The  Suppers  cooked  by  the  illustrious  Ude  at 
Crockford's  Gaming  House  (now  the  Devonshire 
Club)  were  famous  for  their  luxurious  splendour  ; 
and,  being  free  to  all  comers,  were  used  as  baits 
to  inveigle  ingenuous  Youth  into  the  Gambling- 
room  ;  for  you  could  scarcely  eat  a  man's  supper 
night  after  night  and  never  give  him  his  chance 
of  revenge.  But  Suppers  to  be  eaten  amid  the 
frantic  excitements  of  a  Gaming  House  were, 
of  necessity,  rather  stimulating  than  substantial. 
For  substantial  Suppers  we  must  turn  to  the  life 
of  a  class  rather  less  exalted  than  that  which 
lost  its  fortune  at  u  Crocky's.  Dickens's  Suppers, 
which  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  supping 
habits  of  the  Middle  Class  in  1837,  are  substantial 
enough,  but  rather  unappetizing.  Old  Mr.  Wardle, 
though  the  most  hospitable  of  men,  only  gave  Mr. 
Pickwick  "  a  plentiful  portion  of  a  gigantic  round 
of  cold  beef " — which  most  people  would  think  an 
indigestible  supper.  Mrs.  Bardell's  system  was 
even  more  culpable,  according  to  Dr.  Wynn 
Westcott,  for  she  gave  her  friends  a  little  warm 
supper  of  "  Petitoes  and  Toasted  Cheese,"  with  "  a 
quiet  cup  of  tea."  I  do  not  exactly  know  what 
petitoes  are,  but  I  am  sure  that  when  stewed  in 
tea  they  must  be  poisonous.     When  Mr.  and  Mrs. 


188  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Kenwigs,  in  honour  of  their  wedding-day,  made  a 
supper  for  their  uncle,  the  Collector,  they  arranged 
the  feast  more  hygienically,  for  their  "  pair  of 
boiled  fowls,  large  piece  of  pork,  apple-pie,  potatoes, 
and  greens  "  were  reinforced  by  a  bowl  of  punch  ; 
and  there  is  a  quite  delicious  supper  in  the  "  Old 
Curiosity  Shop,"  where  a  stew,  worthy  to  rank 
with  that  which  Meg  Merrilies  forced  on  the  re- 
luctant Dominie,  is  washed  down  with  a  pint  of 
mulled  ale. 

Thackeray,  though  he  excelled  at  a  Dinner,  knew 
also,  at  least  in  his  earlier  and  Bohemian  days, 
what  was  meant  by  a  Supper.  Mr.  Archer,  the 
journalist  in  "  Pendennis,"  who  was  so  fond  of 
vaunting  his  imaginary  acquaintance  with  great 
people,  thus  described  his  evening  repast  at  Apsley 
House  : — 

"The  Duke  knows  what  I  like,  and  says  to  the 
Groom  of  the  Chambers  :  <  Martin,  you  will  have 
some  cold  beef,  not  too  much  done,  and  a  pint 
bottle  of  Pale  Ale,  and  some  brown  Sherry  ready 
in  my  study  as  usual.'  The  Duke  doesn't  eat 
supper  himself,  but  he  likes  to  see  a  man  enjoy  a 
hearty  meal,  and  he  knows  that  I  dine  early." 

But  all  this  is  fifty  years  ago  and  more.  Do 
people  eat  supper  nowadays  ?  Of  course  the 
young  and  frivolous  eat  ball-suppers,  and  supper 
after  the  Theatre  is  a  recognized  feature  of 
London  life.  But  does  any  one  eat  supper  in  his 
own   house  ?     To    be   sure,   a   tray   of   wine   and 


SUPPER  189 

water  still  appears  in  some  houses  just  as  the  party 
is  breaking  up,  and  it  is  called  a  "  Supper  Tray," 
but  is  only  the  thin  and  pallid  ghost  of  what  was 
once  a  jolly  meal. 

One  more  form  of  Supper  remains  to  be  re- 
corded. In  the  circles  in  which  I  was  reared  it 
was  customary  to  observe  one  day  in  the  year 
as  a  kind  of  Festival  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society  or  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel,  according  as  the  principles  of  the  Incum- 
bent were  Low  or  High.  The  arrangements  com- 
prised a  special  service  in  church,  with  a  sermon 
by  that  mysterious  stranger  "  the  Deputation  from 
the  Parent  Society  "  ;  an  evening  meeting  in  the 
Town  Hall;  and  a  supper  at  the  Rectory  or  the 
Squire's  house.  Bidden  to  such  a  festival,  a  friend 
of  the  Missionary  cause  wrote  thus  to  the  lady 
who  had  invited  him :  "  I  greatly  regret  that  I 
cannot  attend  the  service,  and  I  very  much  fear 
that  I  shall  not  be  in  time  for  the  meeting.  But, 
D.V.,  I  will  be  with  you  at  Supper." 


XXVI 

INNS    AND    HOTELS 

"  Anchovies  and  Sack  after  Supper  "  was  honest 
FalstafT's  notion  of  an  apt  sequence.  But  An- 
chovies, even  in  their  modern  extension  of  "  Hors 
d'GEuvres,"  will  not  make  a  chapter  ;  and  Sack,  in 
the  form  of  Sherry,  has  been  exhaustively  dis- 
cussed. I  must  therefore  betake  myself  from 
Falstaff  to  Touchstone,  whose  enumeration  of 
"  Dinners  and  Suppers  and  Sleeping-hours "  may 
serve  my  present  need. 

Where  to  dine  ?  Where  to  sup  ?  Where  to 
sleep  ?  Momentous  questions  these  ;  and  at  this 
instant  they  are  in  the  thoughts  and  on  the  lips  of 
thousands  of  my  fellow-creatures  as  they  journey 
through  or  towards  London.  October  in  London 
is  a  season  with  marked  and  special  characteristics. 
Restaurants  are  crowded ;  Bond  Street  is  blocked 
by  shopping  ladies  ;  seats  at  the  theatre  must  be 
booked  ten  days  in  advance. 

This  October  "  Season  "  is  the  product  of  many 
forces.  The  genuine  Londoners,  who  have  been 
away,  for  health  or  sport  or  travel,  in  August  and 

i  go 


INNS    AND    HOTELS  191 

September  now  come  back  with  a  rush,  and  hasten 
to  make  up  for  their  long  exile  by  feverish  activity 
in  the  pursuit  of  pleasure.  But  the  Londoners 
by  no  means  have  the  town  to  themselves.  The 
Country  Cousins  are  present  in  great  force.  They 
live  laborious  but  delightful  days  in  examining 
the  winter  fashions  ;  they  get  all  their  meals  at 
Prince's  or  the  Carlton ;  and  they  go  to  the 
play  every  night.  To  these  must  be  added  the 
Americans,  who,  having  shot  our  grouse  and 
stalked  our  deer  and  drunk  of  our  medicated 
springs,  are  now  passing  through  London  on  their 
way  to  Liverpool.  As  a  rule,  they  buy  their 
clothes  in  Paris,  and  leave  the  products  of  Bond 
Street  and  Grafton  Street  to  the  British  con- 
sumer. But  their  propensity  to  Theatre-parties 
and  Suppers  endears  them  to  managers  and 
restaurant-keepers  ;  and  on  Sunday  they  can  be 
detected  at  St.  Paul's  or  the  Abbey,  rendering  the 
hymns  with  that  peculiar  intonation  for  which 
Chaucer's  "Prioresse"  was  so  justly  admired. 
Even  a  few  belated  French  and  German  tourists 
are  still  wandering  disconsolately  among  "the 
sheddings  of  the  pining  umbrage  "  in  the  parks,  or 
gazing  with  awe  at  the  grim  front  of  Buckingham 
Palace.  Where  do  all  these  pilgrims  stay  ?  We 
know  where  they  dine  and  sup  ;  but  where  do 
they  spend  what  Touchstone  called  their  "  sleep- 
ing-hours "  ?  I  only  know  that  they  do  not  spend 
them  in  Inns,  for  Inns  as  I  understand  the  word 


192  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

have  ceased  to  exist.     They  went  out  with  "  The 
Road." 

It  has  been  remarked  by  not  unfriendly  critics 
that  the  author  of  these  quiet  meditations  seems 
to    live   a   good   deal    in  the  past,  and  people  in 
whom  the  chronological  sense  is  missing  are  apt 
to  think  me  a  great  deal  older  than  I  am.     Thus 
when  I  have  recalled  among  my  earliest  recollec- 
tions   the    fire    which    destroyed    Covent   Garden 
Theatre    (in    1856),    I    have    been  thought   to   be 
babbling  of  Drury  Lane,  which  was  burnt  down 
in   181 2  ;    and  so,  when  I  say  that  in  early  life   I 
travelled   a   great    deal    upon    the    Road,   I    shall 
probably  be  accused  of  having  been  born  before 
railways  were  invented.     What  is  true  enough  is 
that    a   prejudice    against    railways    lingered   long 
after    they    were    in    general    use  ;    some    people 
thought  them  dangerous,  some   undignified,    and 
I  believe  that  there  were  some  who  even  thought 
them  wicked  because  they  are  not  mentioned  in 
the   Bible.     ""I   suppose  you  have  heard  of  Lady 
Vanilla's    trip    from    Birmingham  ? "     says    Lady 
Marney    in    "  Sybil."     "  Have   you    not,   indeed  ? 
She  came  up  with   Lady  Laura,  and  two  of  the 
most    gentlemanlike    men    sitting    opposite    her  ; 
never  met,  she    says,  two   more    intelligent  men. 
She  begged   one  of  them  at   Wolverhampton   to 
change  seats  with  her,  and  he  was  most  politely 
willing   to    comply    with   her  wishes,  only  it  was 


INNS    AND    HOTELS  193 

necessary  that  his  companion  should  move  at  the 
same  time,  for  they  were  chained  together — two 
gentlemen  sent  to  town  for  picking  pockets  at 
Shrewsbury  races."  "A  Countess  and  a  felon!" 
said  Lord  Mowbray.  "  So  much  for  public  con- 
veyances." To  these  social  perils  were  added 
terrors  of  tunnels,  terrors  of  viaducts,  terrors  of 
fires  which  would  burn  you  to  an  ash  in  your 
locked  carriage,  terrors  of  robbers  who  were  sup- 
posed to  travel  first-class  for  the  express  purpose 
of  chloroforming  well-dressed  passengers  and  then 
stealing  their  watches.  Haunted  by  these  and 
similar  fears,  some  old-fashioned  people  travelled 
by  road  till  well  into  the  'sixties.  From  my  home 
in  the  South  Midlands  we  took  a  whole  day 
in  getting  to  London,  forty  miles  off ;  two  to 
Leamington,  three  to  Winchester  ;  and  those  who 
still  travelled  in  this  leisurely  mode  were  the  last 
patrons  of  the  Inn. 

It  was  generally  a  broad-browed,  solid,  com- 
fortable-looking house  in  the  most  central  part  of 
a  country  town.  Not  seldom  the  sign  was  taken 
from  the  armorial  bearings  of  the  local  magnate. 
There  were  a  Landlord  and  a  Landlady,  who  came 
out  bowing  when  the  carriage  drove  up,  and  con- 
ducted the  travellers  to  their  rooms,  while  the 
"  Imperials  "  were  taken  down  from  the  roof  of 
the  carriage.  (Could  one  buy  an  "Imperial" 
nowadays   if    one   wanted    it  ?     The    most    recent 

N 


194  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

reference  to  it  which  I  can  recall  occurs  in  the 
first  chapter  of  "  Tom  Brown's  School  Days.") 
Very  often  the  rooms  of  the  Inn  were  distinguished 
not  by  numbers,  but  by  names  or  tokens  derived 
from  the  situation,  or  the  furniture,  or  from  some 
famous  traveller  who  had  slept  in  them — the  Bow 
Room,  the  Peacock  Room,  or  the  Wellington 
Room.  The  Landlord  had  generally  been  a 
butler,  but  sometimes  a  coachman.  Anyhow,  he 
and  his  wife  had  "  lived  in  the  best  families  "  and 
"  knew  how  things  ought  to  be  done."  The  fur- 
niture was  solid,  dark,  and  handsome — mahogany 
predominating,  here  and  there  relieved  with  rose- 
wood. There  was  old  silver  on  the  table,  and  the 
walls  were  covered  with  sporting  or  coaching 
prints,  views  of  neighbouring  castles,  and  portraits 
of  the  Nobility  whom  the  Landlord  had  served. 
The  bedrooms  were  dark  and  stuffy  beyond  be- 
lief, with  bedsteads  like  classic  temples  and  deep 
feather-beds  into  which  you  sank  as  into  a  quick- 
sand. The  food  was  like  the  furniture,  heavy  and 
handsome.  There  was  "  gunpowder  tea  " — green 
if  you  asked  for  it, — luscious  cream,  and  really 
new-laid  eggs.  The  best  bottle  of  claret  which  I 
ever  encountered  emerged,  quite  accidentally,  from 
the  cellar  of  a  village  Inn  close  to  the  confluence 
of  the  Greta  and  the  Tees,  in  a  district  hallowed 
by  the  associations  of  Rokeby  and  Mr.  Squeers. 
When,  next    morning,  you   had  paid  your  bill — 


INNS    AND    HOTELS  195 

not,  as  a  rule,  a  light  one — the  Landlord  and 
Lady  escorted  you  to  the  door,  and  politely  ex- 
pressed a  hope  that  you  would  honour  them  on 
your  return  journey.  Then  "  Hey,  for  the  lilt  of 
the  London  road  ! "  and  the  Montfort  Arms,  or 
the  Roebuck,  or  the  Marquis  of  Granby,  is  only  a 
pleasant  memory  of  an  unreturning  day. 

What  in  the  country  was  called  an  Inn  was 
called  in  London  a  "  Family  Hotel."  It  was 
commonly  found  in  Dover  Street,  or  Albemarle 
Street,  or  Bolton  Street,  or  some  such  byway 
of  Piccadilly  ;  and  in  its  aspect,  character,  and 
general  arrangement  it  was  exactly  like  the  country 
Inn,  only  of  necessity  darker,  dingier,  and  more 
airless.  Respectability,  mahogany,  and  horsehair 
held  it  in  their  iron  grip.  Here  county  families, 
coming  up  from  the  Drawing  Room,  or  the 
Academy,  or  the  Exhibition,  or  the  Derby,  spent 
cheerful  weeks  in  summer.  Here  in  the  autumn 
they  halted  on  their  return  from  Doncaster  or 
Aix.  Here  the  boys  slept  on  their  way  back 
to  Eton  or  Cambridge  ;  hither  the  subaltern 
returned,  like  a  homing  pigeon,  from  India  or 
the  Cape. 

But  the  Family  Hotel,  like  the  Country  Inn, 
has  seen  its  day.  When  the  Times  was  inciting 
the  inhabitants  of  Rome  to  modernize  their  city, 
Matthew  Arnold,  writing  in  Miss  Story's  album, 
made  airy  fun  of  the  suggestion.      He  represented 


196  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

"  the  Times,  that  bright  Apollo,"  proclaiming  salva- 
tion to  the  "  armless  Cupid "  imprisoned  in  the 
Vatican  : — 

"  '  And  what,'  cries  Cupid,  '  will  save  us  ? ' 
Says  Apollo  :  '  Modernize  Rome  ! 
What  inns  !   Your  streets  too,  how  narrow  ! 
Too  much  of  palace  and  dome  ! 

"  '  O  learn  of  London,  whose  paupers 
Are  not  pushed  out  by  the  swells  ! 
Wide  streets,  with  fine  double  trottoirs  ; 
And  then — the  London  hotels  ! ' '' 

Between  the  "  Inns "  of  my  youth  and  these 
"  Hotels  "  of  to-day  the  difference  is  so  great  that 
they  can  scarcely  be  recognized  as  belonging  to 
the  same  family.  Under  the  old  dispensation  all 
was  solid  comfort,  ponderous  respectability,  and 
the  staid  courtesy  of  the  antique  world  ;  under 
the  new  it  is  all  glare  and  glitter,  show  and  sham  ; 
the  morals  of  the  Tuileries  and  the  manners  of 
Greenwich  Fair.  The  building  is  something 
between  a  palace  and  a  barrack,  with  a  hall  of 
marble,  a  staircase  of  alabaster,  a  winter  garden 
full  of  birds  and  fountains,  and  a  band  which 
deafens  you  while  you  eat  your  refined  but  ex- 
iguous dinner.  Among  these  sumptuosities  the 
visitor  is  no  longer  a  person  but  a  number.  As 
a  number  he  is  received  by  the  gigantic  "  Suisse  " 
who,  resplendent  in  green  and  gold,  watches  the 
approach    to    the    palace  ;    as    a    number    he    is 


INNS    AND    HOTELS  197 

registered  by  a  dictatorial  "  Secretary,"  enshrined 
in  a  Bureau  ;  as  a  number  he  is  shot  up,  like  a 
parcel,  to  his  airy  lodgings  on  the  seventh  floor  ; 
as  a  number  he  orders  his  meals  ;  as  a  number 
he  pays  his  bill.  The  whole  business  is  a  micro- 
cosm of  State  Socialism  :  Bureaucracy  is  supreme, 
and  the  Individual  is  lost  in  the  Machine.  But, 
though  the  courtesies  and  the  humanities  and  even 
the  decencies  of  the  old  order  have  vanished  so 
completely,  the  exactions  remain  much  the  same 
as  they  were.  There  is,  indeed,  no  courtly  land- 
lord to  bow,  like  a  plumper  Sir  Charles  Grandison, 
over  the  silver  salver  on  which  you  have  laid 
your  gold  ;  but  there  are  gilt-edged  porters,  and 
moustached  lift-men,  and  a  regiment  of  buttony 
boys  who  float  round  the  departing  guest  with 
well-timed  assiduity  ;  and  the  Suisse  at  the  door, 
as  he  eyes  our  modest  luggage  with  contemptuous 
glare,  looks  quite  prepared,  if  need  be,  to  extort 
his  guerdon  by  physical  force. 

The  British  Inn,  whatever  were  its  shortcomings 
in  practice,  has  been  glorified  in  some  of  the  best 
verse  and  best  prose  in  the  English  language.  It 
will,  methinks,  be  a  long  time  before  even  the 
most  impressionable  genius  of  the  "  Bodley  Head  " 
pens  a  panegyric  of  the  London  Hotel. 


XXVII 

TRAVEL 

The  October  Season,  of  which  I  lately  spoke,  is 
practically  over.  "  The  misty  autumn  sunlight 
and  the  sweeping  autumn  wind "  are  yielding 
place  to  cloud  and  storm.  In  a  week's  time 
London  will  have  assumed  its  winter  habit, 
and  already  people  are  settling  down  to  their 
winter  way  of  living.  The  last  foreigner  has  fled. 
The  Country  Cousins  have  finished  their  shopping 
and  have  returned  to  the  pursuit  of  the  Pheasant 
and  the  Fox.  The  true  Londoners — the  people 
who  come  back  to  town  for  the  "  first  note  of  the 
Muffin-bell  and  retreat  to  the  country  for  the 
first  note  of  the  Nightingale  " — have  resumed  the 
placidity  of  their  normal  life.  Dinner-parties  have 
hardly  begun,  but  there  are  plenty  of  little 
luncheons ;  the  curtains  are  drawn  about  four, 
and  there  are  three  good  hours  for  Bridge  before 
one  need  think  of  going  to  dress  for  dinner.  And 
now,  just  when  London  is  beginning  to  wear  once 
again  its  most  attractive  aspect,  at  once  sociable 

and  calm,  some  perverse  people,  disturbers  of  the 

198 


TRAVEL  199 

public   peace,  must   needs   throw  everything  into 
confusion  by  going  abroad. 

Their    motives   are    many    and   various.     With 
some   it   is    health  :    "I    feel   that    I    must  have   a 
little  sunshine,  I  have  been  so  rheumatic  all  this 
autumn,"  or  "  My  doctor  tells  me  that,  with  my 
tendency  to  bronchitis,  the  fogs  are  really  danger- 
ous."    With  some  it  is  sheer  restlessness  :  "  Well, 
you  see,  we  were  here  all  the  summer,  except  just 
Whitsuntide   and   Ascot   and   Goodwood  ;    so    we 
have   had   about    enough    of    London.     And    our 
home  in  Loamshire  is  so  fearfully  lonely  in  winter 
that  it  quite  gets    on  my  nerves.     So   I    think  a 
little  run  will   do  us  all  good  ;    and  we  shall  be 
back  by  the  New   Year,   or    February  at    latest." 
With  some,  again,  economy  is  the  motive  power  ; 
"  What  with  two  sons  to  allowance,  and  two  still 
at  school  ;  and  one  girl  to  be  married  at   Easter, 
and    one    just    coming    out,    as    well    as    a    most 
expensive  governess  for  the  young  ones,  I  assure 
you   it   is  quite  difficult  to  make  two   ends  meet. 
We  have  got  an  excellent  offer  for  Eaton   Place 
from  November  to  May,  and  some  friends  on  the 
Riviera  have  repeatedly  asked  us  to  pay  them  a 
long  visit  ;  and,  when  that's  done,  one  can  live  en 
pension  at  Montreux  for  next  to  nothing."      Others 
are  lured  abroad  by  the  love   of  gambling,  though 
this  is  not  avowed  :   "  I  do  so  love  Monte  Carlo — 
not  the  gambling,  but  the  air,  and,  even  if  one  does 
lose    a    franc  or  two  at  the  tables,    I   always  say 


200  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

that  we  should  lose  much  more  at  home,  with 
Christmas  presents,  and  Workhouse  Treats,  and 
all  those  tiresome  things  one  has  to  do." 

It  is  not  a  joke — for  I  never  joke  about  religion 
— it  is  a  literal  fact  that  in  my  youth  the  prophecy 
in  the  Book  of  Daniel  that  "  Many  shall  run  to 
and  fro,  and  knowledge  shall  be  increased "  was 
interpreted  as  pointing  to  an  enlargement  of  the 
human  mind  through  increased  facilities  of  travel. 
I  do  not  guarantee  the  exegesis,  but  I  note  the 
fact.  A  hundred  years  ago,  if  parents  wished  to 
enlarge  their  son's  understanding  by  sending  him 
on  the  "  Grand  Tour  "  of  Europe,  they  set  aside 
twelve  months  for  the  fulfilment  of  their  purpose. 
Young  Hopeful  set  out  in  a  travelling-carriage 
with  a  tutor  (or  Bear-Leader),  a  Doctor,  and  a 
Valet.  The  Bear-Leader's  was  a  recognized  and 
lucrative  profession.  In  a  diary  for  1788,  which 
lies  before  me  as  I  write,  I  read  :  "  Mr.  Coxe,  the 
traveller,  has  been  particularly  lucky  as  a  Pupil- 
Leader  about  Europe.  After  Lord  Herbert,  he 
had  Mr.  Whitbred  at  ^800  per  arm.,  and  now 
has  Mr.  Portman,  with  ^1000  per  aim."  Patrick 
Brydone,  scholar,  antiquary,  and  virtuoso,  whose 
daughter  married  the  second  Earl  of  Minto,  was 
"  Pupil-Leader  "  (or  Bear-Leader)  to  William  Beck- 
ford.  Sydney  Smith  was  dug  out  of  his  curacy  on 
Salisbury  Plain  in  order  to  act  as  Bear-Leader  to 
the  grandfather  of  the  present  Lord  St.  Aldwyn. 
Charles    Richard    Sumner,    who,    as    last    of    the 


TRAVEL  201 

Prince-Bishops  of  Winchester,  drew  .£40,000  a 
year  for  forty  years,  began  life  as  Bear-Leader  to 
Lord  Mount-Charles,  eldest  son  of  that  Lady 
Conyngham  whom  George  IV.  admired  ;  and  he 
owed  his  first  preferment  in  the  Church  to  the 
amiable  complaisance  with  which  he  rescued  his 
young  charge  from  a  matrimonial  entanglement. 
That  was  early  in  the  nineteenth  century  ;  but 
forty  years  later  the  Bear-Leader  was  still  an 
indispensable  adjunct  to  the  Grand  Tour  of 
Illustrious  Youth.  The  late  Duke  of  Argyll  has 
told  us  how  he  made  his  travels  sandwiched  inside 
his  father's  chariot  between  his  preceptor  and 
his  physician.  When  the  Marquis  of  Montacute 
made  his  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land  he  was 
even  more  liberally  attended  ;  for,  in  addition  to 
his  Bear-Leader,  Colonel  Grouse,  he  took  his 
father's  doctor,  Mr  Groby,  to  avert  or  cure  the 
fevers,  and  his  father's  chaplain,  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Bernard,  to  guide  his  researches  into  the  theology 
of  Syria.  Perhaps  Lord  Montacute  existed  only 
in  Lord  Beaconsfield's  rich  imagination  ;  but 
Thackeray,  who  never  invented  but  always  de- 
scribed what  he  saw,  drew  a  delightful  portrait  of 
"  the  Rev.  Baring  Leader,"  who,  u  having  a  great 
natural  turn  and  liking  towards  the  aristocracy," 
consented  to  escort  Viscount  Talboys  when  that 
beer-loving  young  nobleman  made  his  celebrated 
journey  down  the  Rhine. 

But,  though   a  special  divinity  always  hedged, 


202  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

as  it  still  hedges,  the  travels  of  an  Eldest  Son,  the 
more  modest  journeyings  of  his  parents  were  not 
accomplished  without  considerable  form  and  fuss. 
Lord  and  Lady  Proudflesh  or  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gold- 
more    travelled    all    over    Europe    in    their     own 
carriage.     It  was  planted  bodily  on  the  deck  of 
the  steamer,  so  that  its  privileged  occupants  could 
endure  the  torments  of  the  crossing  in   dignified 
seclusion  ;  and,  when  once  the  solid  shore  of  the 
Continent  was  safely  reached,  it  was  drawn  by  an 
endless  succession  of  post-horses,  ridden  by  pos- 
tillions, with   the  valet  and  maid   (like  those  who 
pertained    to    Sir    Leicester    and    Lady    Dedlock) 
"  affectionate  in  the  rumble."     The  inside  of  the 
carriage  was  a  miracle  of  ingenuity.     Space  was 
economized  with  the  most  careful  art,  and  all  the 
appliances  of  travel — looking-glasses  and  luncheon- 
baskets,  lamps  and  maps,  newspapers  and  books — 
were  bestowed  in  their  peculiar  and  appropriate 
corners.      I   possess   a   "dining  equipage"    which 
made  the  tour  of  Europe  not  once  but  often  in 
the  service  of  a   Diplomatist.      It   is  shaped  some- 
thing like  a  large  egg,  and  covered  with  shagreen. 
It    contains    a    tumbler,    a    sandwich-box,    and    a 
silver-handled  knife,  fork,  and  spoon  ;  the  handle 
of    each    of   these    tools    unscrews,    and    in   their 
hollow  interiors  the   Diplomatist  carried   his  salt, 
sugar,  and  pepper.     On  the  roof  of  the  carriage 
was  the  more  substantial  luggage.      A  travelling- 
bath,   though    not   unknown,  was    rather    an    ex- 


TRAVEL  203 

ceptional  luxury,  and,  according  to  our  modern 
notions,  it  was  painfully  small.  A  silver  tub  which 
sufficed  for  the  ablutions  of  the  great  Duke  of 
Marlborough  through  the  campaigns  which  changed 
the  face  of  Europe  now  serves  as  a  rose-bowl  at 
the  banquets  of  Spencer  House. 

The  trunks,  which  were  strapped  to  the  roof  of 
the  travelling-carriage,  were  of  a  peculiar  form — 
very  shallow,  and  so  shaped  as  to  fit  into  one 
another  and  occupy  every  inch  of  space.  These 
were  called  Imperials,  and  just  now  I  referred  to 
Tom  Hughes's  undeserved  strictures  on  them. 
The  passage  fits  neatly  into  our  present  subject  :  "  I 
love  vagabonds,  only  I  prefer  poor  to  rich  ones. 
Couriers  and  ladies'  maids,  imperials  and  travelling- 
carriages,  are  an  abomination  unto  me — I  cannot 
away  with  them."  To  me,  on  the  contrary,  the 
very  word  "Imperial"  (when  divested  of  political 
associations)  is  pleasant.  It  appeals  to  the  historic 
sense.  It  carries  us  back  to  Napoleon's  campaigns, 
and  to  that  wonderful  house  on  wheels — his  tra- 
velling-carriage— now  enshrined  at  Madame  Tus- 
saud's.  It  even  titillates  the  gastronomic  instinct 
by  recalling  that  masterly  method  of  cooking  a 
fowl  which  bears  the  name  of  Marengo.  The 
great  Napoleon  had  no  notion  of  fighting  his 
battles  on  an  empty  stomach,  so,  wherever  he 
was,  a  portable  kitchen,  in  the  shape  of  a  travel- 
ling-carriage, was  close  at  hand.  The  cook  and 
his  marmitons  travelled  inside,  with  the  appliances 


204  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

for  making  a  charcoal  fire  at  a  moment's  notice, 
while  the  Imperials  on  the  roof  contained  the  due 
supply  of  chickens,  eggs,  bread,  and  Bordeaux.  In 
the  preparation  of  a  meal  under  such  conditions 
time  was  money — nay,  rather,  it  was  Empire. 
The  highest  honours  were  bestowed  on  the  most 
expeditious  method,  and  the  method  called  after 
Marengo  took  exactly  twenty  minutes. 

Here  is  testimony  much  more  recent.  Lady 
Dorothy  Nevill,  in  the  volume  of  "  Reminiscences  " 
which  she  has  lately  given  to  the  world,  thus 
describes  her  youthful  journeys  between  her 
London  and  her  Norfolk  homes  :  "  It  took  us  two 
long  days  to  get  to  Wolterton,  and  the  cost  must 
have  been  considerable.  We  went  in  the  family 
coach  with  four  post-horses,  whilst  two  '  fourgons ' 
conveyed  the  luggage."  But  travelling  abroad 
was  a  still  more  majestic  ceremonial :  u  We  were 
a  large  party — six  of  ourselves,  as  well  as  two 
maids,  a  footman,  and  French  cook  ;  nor  must  I 
forget  a  wonderful  courier,  covered  with  gold 
and  braid.  He  preceded  our  cavalcade  and  an- 
nounced the  imminent  arrival  of  a  great  English 
Milord  and  his  suite.  We  had  two  fourgons  to 
hold  the  batterie  de  cuisine  and  our  six  beds, 
which  had  to  be  unpacked  and  made  up  every 
night.  We  had,  besides  the  family  coach  and  a 
barouche,  six  saddle  horses,  and  two  attendant 
grooms." 

Travel  in  those  brave  days  of  old  was  a  dignified, 


1J 


TRAVEL  205 

a    leisurely,    and    a    comfortable    process.       How 
different    is    Travel    in    these    degenerate    times  ! 
For   the  young    man   rejoicing  in    his  strength    it 
means,    as    Tom    Hughes    said    forty    years    ago, 
"  getting  over  a  couple  of  thousand  miles  for  three- 
pound-ten  ;  going   round    Ireland,    with    a    return 
ticket,    in    a    fortnight ;    dropping    your    copy    of 
Tennyson   on   the  top    of    a    Swiss    mountain,    or 
pulling  clown  the    Danube    in  an    Oxford  racing- 
boat."     For    those    who    have    reached    maturer 
years  it  may  mean  a  couple  of  nights  in  Paris,  just 
to  see  the  first  performance  of  a  new  play  and  to 
test  the  merits  of  the  latest  restaurant,  or  it  may 
mean  a  week  in  New  York  to  study  the  bearings 
of  the   Presidential   election    and    to   gather   fresh 
views  of   the  Silver    Question.     Dr.   Lunn    kindly 
invites  the  more  seriously  minded  to  a  Conference 
at  Grindelwald,  where  we  can  combine  the  delights 
of  Alpine  scenery  and  undenominational  religion  ; 
and  "  the   son    of  a   well-known    member   of  the 
House   of  Lords "   offers   to  conduct    us    person- 
ally through   ''  A    Lion    and  Rhinoceros    Hunting 
Party  in  Somalikmd,"  or  "  A  Scientific  Expedition 
to  Central  Africa,   to    visit    the    supposed    cradle 
of  the  human  race  and  the  site  of  the  Garden  of 
Eden."     Nothing  of  Travelling-carriages  and  Im- 
perials here  1     No    "  maid    and   valet   affectionate 
in  the  rumble."     All  the  pomp  and  circumstance, 
all   the  ease  and   calm,   of   Travel   have  vanished, 
and    with    them    all    sense   of   independence    and 


206 


SEEING    AND    HEARING 


responsibility.  The  modern  traveller  is  shot  like 
a  bullet  through  a  tunnel,  or  hauled  like  a  parcel 
up  a  hill.  He  certainly  sees  the  world  at  very 
little  cost,  but  he  sees  it  under  wonderfully  un- 
comfortable conditions. 


XXVIII 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS 

A  pictorial  critic,  commending  the  water-colour 
painting  of  Mr.  Arthur  Rich,  says  that,  after 
examining  his  firm  and  serious  work,  "  it  is  im- 
possible to  think  that  there  is  anything  trivial  in 
the  art  of  Aquarelle — that  it  is,  as  has  been  said, 
'  a  thing  Aunts  do.'  " 

A   thing  Aunts  do.      I  linger  on   the   words,   for 
they  suggest  deep  thoughts.     Many  and  mysterious 
are  the  tricks  of  language — not  least  so  the  subtle 
law  by  which  certain  relationships  inevitably  sug- 
gest peculiar  traits.     Thus  the  Grandmother  stands 
to  all  time  as  the  type  of  benevolent  feebleness  ; 
the  Stepmother  was  branded  by  classical  antiquity 
as  Unjust  ;  and  Thackeray's  Mrs.  Gashleigh   and 
Mrs.  Chuff  are  the  typical  Mothers-in-Law.     The 
Father  is  commonly  the  "  Heavy  Father  "  of  fiction 
and   the   drama.     The    Mother    is    always    quoted 
with   affection,  as  in   "  Mother-wit,"  our   Mother- 
country,   and  our   Mother-tongue.     "  A   Brother," 
ever   since   the   days    of    Solomon,    "  is    born    for 
adversity,"  and  a   Brother-officer  implies   a  loyal 

friend.     A  Sister  is  the  type  of  Innocence,   with 

207 


208  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

just  a  faint  tinge  or  nuance  of  pitying  contempt, 
as  when  the  Vainglorious  Briton  speaks  of  the 
"  Sister  Country  "  across  St.  George's  Channel,  or 
the  hubristic  Oxonian  sniggers  at  the  "  Sister  Uni- 
versity "  of  Cambridge.  Eldest  and  Younger  Sons 
again,  as  I  have  before  now  had  occasion  to  point 
out,  convey  two  quite  different  sets  of  ideas,  and 
this  discrepancy  has  not  escaped  the  notice  of  the 
social  Poet,  who  observes  that — 

"  Acres  and  kine  and  tenements  and  sheep 
Enrich  the  Eldest,  while  the  Younger  Sons 
Monopolize  the  talents  and  the  duns." 

"  My  Uncle,"  in  colloquial  phrase,  signifies  the 
merchant  who  transacts  his  business  under  the 
sign  of  the  Three  Golden  Balls  ;  and  to  these 
expressive  relationships  must  be  added  Auntship. 
u  A  thing  Aunts  do,"  says  the  pictorial  critic  ;  and 
the  contumelious  phrase  is  not  of  yesterday,  for 
in  1829  a  secularly-minded  friend  complained 
that  young  Mr.  William  Gladstone,  then  an  Under- 
graduate at  Christ  Church,  had  "  mixed  himself 
up  so  much  with  the  St.  Mary  Hall  and  Oriel  set, 
who  are  really,  for  the  most  part,  only  fit  to  live 
with  maiden  aunts  and  keep  tame  rabbits."  To 
paint  in  water-colour  and  to  keep  tame  rabbits 
are  pursuits  which  to  the  superficial  gaze  have 
little  in  common,  though  both  are,  or  were, 
characteristic  of  Aunts,  and  both  are,  in  some 
sense,  accomplishments,  demanding  natural  taste, 


ACCOMPLISHMENTS  209 

acquired  skill,  patience,  care,  a  delicate  touch,  and 
a  watchful  eye.  Perhaps  these  were  the  particular 
accomplishments  in  which  the  traditional  Aunt 
"specialized,"  though  she  had  never  heard  that 
bad  word  ;  but,  if  she  chose  to  diffuse  her  energies 
more  widely,  the  world  was  all  before  her  where  to 
choose  ;  and,  by  a  singular  reversal  of  the  law  of 
progress,  there  were  more  "  accomplishments  "  to 
solicit  her  attention  a  hundred  years  ago  than  there 
are  to-day. 

When  the  most  fascinating  of  all  heroines,  Di 
Vernon,  anticipated  posterity  by  devoting  her 
attention  to  politics,  field  sports,  and  classical  liter- 
ature, she  enumerated,  among  the  more  feminine 
accomplishments  which  she  had  discarded,  "  sew- 
ing a  tucker,  working  cross-stitch,  and  making  a 
pudding  "  ;  and  she  instanced,  among  the  symbols 
of  orthodox  femininity  "a  shepherdess  wrought  in 
worsted,  a  broken-backed  spinet,  a  lute  with  three 
strings,  rock-work,  shell-work,  and  needle-work." 
We  clear  the  century  with  a  flying  leap,  and 
find  ourselves  in  the  company  of  a  model  matron, 
with  surroundings  substantially  unchanged  :  "  Mrs. 
Bayham-Badger  was  surrounded  in  the  drawing- 
room  by  various  objects  indicative  of  her  painting 
a  little,  playing  the  piano  a  little,  playing  the  guitar 
a  little,  playing  the  harp  a  little,  singing  a  little, 
working  a  little,  reading  a  little,  writing  poetry  a 
little,  and  botanizing  a  little.  If  I  add  to  the  little 
list  of  her  accomplishments  that  she  rouged  a  little, 
I   do   not   mean  that  there  was  any  harm   in    it." 

o 


210  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Miss  Volumnia  Dedlock's  accomplishments,  though 
belonging  to  the  same  period,  were  slightly  dif- 
ferent :  "  Displaying  in  early  life  a  pretty  talent 
for  cutting  ornaments  out  of  coloured  paper,  and 
also  singing  to  the  guitar  in  the  Spanish  tongue 
and  propounding  French  conundrums  in  country 
houses,  she  passed  the  twenty  years  of  her  exist- 
ence between  twenty  and  forty  in  a  sufficiently 
agreeable  manner.  Lapsing  then  out  of  date,  and 
being  considered  to  bore  mankind  by  her  vocal 
performances  in  the  Spanish  language,  she  retired 
to  Bath."  Perhaps  she  had  been  educated  by 
Miss  Monflathers,  "who  was  at  the  head  of  the 
head  Boarding  and  Day  Establishment  in  the 
town,"  and  whose  gloss  on  the  didactic  ditty  of 
the  Busy  Bee  so  confounded  the  emissary  from 
the  Waxworks. 

"In  books,  or  work,  or  healthful  play 

is  quite  right  as  far  as  genteel  children  are  con- 
cerned, and  in  their  case  '  work '  means  painting  on 
velvet,  fancy  needle-work,  or  embroidery."  Do 
even  Aunts  paint  on  velvet,  or  cut  ornaments  out 
of  coloured  paper,  in  this  "  so-called  Twentieth 
Century "  ?  I  know  no  more  pathetic  passage  in 
the  Literature  of  Art  than  that  in  which  Mrs. 
Gaskell  enumerated  Miss  Matty's  qualifications  for 
the  work  of  teaching  : — 

"  I  ran  over  her  accomplishments.  Once  upon 
a  time  I  had  heard  her  say  she  could  play  'Ah  ! 
vous    dirai-je    maraan  ? '    on    the    piano ;    but   that 


I 


ACCOMPLISHMENTS  211 

was  long,  long  ago  ;  that  faint  shadow  of  musical 
acquirement  had  died  out  years  before.  She  had 
also  once  been  able  to  trace  patterns  very  nicely 
for  muslin  embroiderv,  but  that  was  her  nearest 
approach  to  the  accomplishment  of  drawing,  and 
I  did  not  think  it  would  go  very  far.  Miss 
Matty's  eyes  were  failing  her,  and  I  doubted  if 
she  could  discover  the  number  of  threads  in  a 
worsted-work  pattern,  or  rightly  appreciate  the 
different  shades  required  for  Queen  Adelaide's 
face,  in  the  loyal  wool-work  now  fashionable  in 
Cranford." 

The  allusion  to  Queen  Adelaide's  face  fixes  the 
narrative  between  1820  and  1830,  and  George  Eliot 
was  depicting  the  same  unenlightened  period  when 
she  described  the  accomplishments  provided  by 
Ladies'  Schools  as  "  certain  small  tinklings  and 
smearings."  Probably  all  of  us  can  recall  an  Aunt 
who  tinkled  on  the  piano,  or  a  First  Cousin  once 
Removed  who  smeared  on  Bristol  Board.  Lady 
Dorothy  Nevill,  whose  invincible  force  and  ever- 
green memory  carry  down  into  the  reign  of  King 
Edward  VII.  the  traditions  of  Queen  Charlotte's 
Court,  is  a  singularly  accomplished  Aunt,  and  she 
has  just  made  this  remarkable  confession  :  "  At 
different  times  I  have  attempted  many  kinds  of 
amateur  work,  including  book  illumination,  leather- 
working,  wood-carving,  and,  of  late  years,  a  kind 
of  old-fashioned  paper-work,  which  consists  in 
arranging  little  slips  of  coloured  paper  into  deco- 
rative   designs,    as    was   done    at    the    end   of   the 


212  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

eighteenth  century.  When  completed,  this  work 
is  made  up  into  boxes,  trays,  or  mounts  for 
pictures."  Surely  in  this  accomplishment  Miss 
Volumnia  Dedlock  lives  again.  And  then  Lady 
Dorothy,  lapsing  into  reminiscent  vein,  makes 
this  rather  half-hearted  apology  for  the  domestic 
artistry  of  bygone  days  :  "  Years  ago  ladies  used  to 
spend  much  more  of  their  time  in  artistic  work  of 
some  kind  or  other,  for  there  were  not  then  the 
many  distractions  which  exist  to-day.  Indeed,  in 
the  country  some  sort  of  work  was  a  positive 
necessity ;  and  though,  no  doubt,  by  far  the 
greater  portion  of  what  was  done  was  absolutely 
hideous,  useless,  and  horrible,  yet  it  served  the 
purpose  of  passing  away  many  an  hour  which 
otherwise  would  have  been  given  up  to  insufferable 
boredom." 

Yes,  the  fashions  of  the  world  succeed  one 
another  in  perpetual  change ;  but  Boredom  is 
eternally  the  enemy,  and  the  paramount  necessity 
of  escaping  from  it  begets  each  year  some  new  and 
strange  activity.  The  Aunt  no  longer  paints  in 
water-colours  or  keeps  tame  rabbits,  flattens  ferns 
in  an  album,  or  traces  crude  designs  with  a  hot 
poker  on  a  deal  board.  To-day  she  urges  the 
impetuous  bicycle,  or,  in  more  extreme  cases, 
directs  the  murderous  motor  ;  lectures  on  politics 
or  platonics,  Icelandic  art,  or  Kamschatkan  liter- 
ature. Perhaps  she  has  a  Cause  or  a  Mission 
pleads  for  the  legal  enforcement  of  Vegetarian 
Boots,  or  tears  down  the  knocker  of  a  Statesman 


ACCOMPLISHMENTS  213 

who  refuses  her  the  suffrage.  Perhaps  her  en- 
thusiasms are  less  altruistic,  and  then  she  may 
pillage  her  friends  at  Bridge,  or  supply  the  New 
York  Sewer  with  a  weekly  column  of  Classy  Cut- 
tings. "Are  you  the  Daily  Mail?"  incautiously 
chirped  a  literary  lady  to  an  unknown  friend  who 
had  rung  her  up  on  the  telephone.  "No,  I'm  not, 
but  I  always  thought  you  were,"  was  the  reply  ; 
and  so,  in  truth,  she  was. 


XXIX 

CIDER 

An   ingenious   correspondent  of   mine    has  lately 
been    visiting    the   Brewers'    Exhibition,   and   has 
come  away  from  it  full  of  Cider.     I  mean  "  full " 
in  the  intellectual  rather  than  the  physical  sense 
— full    of    the    subject,    though    unversed    in    the 
beverage.     He  reminds  me  that  Charles  Lamb  had 
his  catalogue  of  "  Books   which   are   no   books — 
biblia   a-biblia,"  among  which  he  reckoned  Court 
Calendars,     Directories,     Pocket-books,     Draught- 
boards bound  and  lettered  on  the  back,  Scientific 
Treatises,  Almanacs,  Statutes  at  Large,  and  Paley's 
Moral  Philsophy.     My  correspondent  suggests  that, 
in  a  like  spirit,  a  Brewer  must  have  his  catalogue 
of  Drinks  which   are  no  drinks— pota  a-pota — and 
that  among  them,  if  only  the  secret  thoughts  of  his 
heart  were  known,  he  must  reckon  Cider.     Yet  at 
the  Brewers'  Exhibition  there  was  a  Literature  of 
Cider,  and   that   innocent-sounding  beverage  was 
quoted  at  a  price  per  bottle  at  which  Claret  is  not 
ashamed  to  be  sold.     That  the  men  of  Malt  and 
Hops  should  thus  officially  recognize  the  existence 
of  fermented   apple-juice  strikes   my  friend  as  an 

Economy  of  Truth  ;  a  suppression,  or  at  least  an 

214 


CIDER  215 

evasion,  of  a  deep-seated  and  absolute  belief.  They 
cannot  really  regard  Cider  as  a  drink,  and  yet  they 
give  it  a  place  alongside  that  manly  draught  which 
has  made  old  England  what  she  is.  I,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  always  like  to  regard  the  actions  of  my 
fellow-men  in  the  most  favourable  light,  prefer  to 
think  that  the  Brewers  have  been  employing  some 
portion  of  that  enforced  leisure,  which  the  decay 
of  their  industry  must  have  brought,  in  studying 
English  literature,  and  that  they  have  thus  been 
made  acquainted  with  the  name  and  fame  of  Cider. 

Biblia  a-biblia  set  me  thinking  of  Lamb,  and 
when  once  one  begins  recalling  "  Elia  "  one  drifts 
along,  in  a  kind  of  waking  reverie,  from  one 
pleasant  fantasy  to  another.  Biblia  a-biblia  led 
me  on  to  "  Dream  Children,"  and  Dream  Children 
to  Dream  Riddles — a  reverie  of  my  own  child- 
hood, when  we  used  to  ask  one  another  a  pleasing 
conundrum  which  played  prettily  on  In  Cider  and 
Inside  her.  But  it  made  light  of  an  illustrious 
name  and  had  better  be  forgotten. 

Few,  I  fear,  are  the  readers  of  John  Philips,  but, 
if  such  there  be,  they  will  no  doubt  recall  the  only 
poem  which,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  been  de- 
voted to  the  praise  of  Apple-wine.  Philips  was  a 
patriotic  son  of  Herefordshire,  and  in  Hereford 
Cathedral  he  lies  buried  under  bunches  of  marble 
apples  which  commemorate  his  poetical  achieve- 
ment : — 

"  What  soil  the  apple  loves,  what  care  is  due 
To  Orchals,  timeliest  when  to  press  the  fruits, 


216  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Thy  gift,  Pomona !  in  Miltonian  verse, 
Adventurous,  I  presume  to  sing  ;  of  verse 
Nor  skill'd  nor  studious ;  but  my  native  soil 
Invites  me,  and  the  theme  as  yet  unsung." 

"Orchats"  is  good;  but  how  far  these  lines  can 
be  justly  called  Miltonian  is  a  question  which  my 
readers  can  decide  for  themselves.  At  any  rate, 
the  poem  contains  more  than  four  thousand  lines 
exactly  like  them,  and  they  had  the  remarkable 
fortune  to  be  translated  into  Italian  under  the 
title  of  "  II  Sidro."  Philips  was  a  Cavalier  in  all 
his  tastes  and  sympathies  :  but  even  the  Puritans, 
whom  he  so  cordially  detested,  admitted  the  merits 
of  Cider.  Macaulay,  with  his  characteristic  love  of 
irrelevant  particularity,  insists  on  the  fact  that, 
through  all  the  commotions  of  the  Great  Rebellion 
and  the  Civil  War,  "  the  cream  overflowed  the  pails 
of  Cheshire  and  the  apple-juice  foamed  in  the 
presses  of  Herefordshire."  Nor  was  it  only  in  his 
purple  prose  that  the  great  rhetorician  glorified  the 
juice  of  the  apple.  Many  a  reader  who  has  for- 
gotten all  about  John  Philips  will  recall  Macaulay's 
rhymes  on  the  garrulous  country  squire  who  had  a 
habit  of  detaining  people  by  the  button,  and  who 
was  especially  addicted  to  the  society  of  Bishops: — 

"  His  Grace  Archbishop  Manners-Sutton 
Could  not  keep  on  a  single  button. 
As  for  Right  Reverend  John  of  Chester, 
His  waistcoats  open  at  the  breasts  are. 
Our  friend  has  filled  a  mighty  trunk 
With  trophies  torn  from  Bishop  Monk, 


CIDER  217 

And  he  has  really  tattered  foully 

The  vestments  of  good  Bishop  Howley. 

No  buttons  could  I  late  discern  on 

The  garments  of  Archbishop  Vernon, 

And  never  had  his  fingers  mercy 

Upon  the  garb  of  Bishop  Percy  ; 

While  buttons  fly  from  Bishop  Ryder 

Like  corks  that  spring  from  bottled  cyder." 

From  Macatilay  and  bottled  Cyder  (or  Cider)  the 
transition  is  easy  to  that  admirable  delineator  of 
life  and  manners,  Mrs.  Sherwood  ;  she  was  pretty 
much  a  contemporary  of   Macaulay's,  and  was  a 
native  of  Worcestershire,  which  in  its  Cider-bearing 
qualities  is  not  far  removed  from   Herefordshire, 
beloved  of  Philips.     Few  but  fit  is  the  audience  to 
which  Mrs.  Sherwood  still  appeals ;  yet  they  who 
were  nurtured   on  "  The   Fairchild    Family "    still 
renew  their  youth  as  they  peruse  the  adventures  of 
Lucy,  Emily,  and  little  Henry  :  "The  farmer  and 
his   wife,   whose    name   was    Freeman,    were    not 
people  who  lived  in  the  fear  of  God,  neither  did 
they  bring  up  their  children  well ;    on   which  ac- 
count  Mr.    Fairchild   had   often   forbidden    Lucy, 
Emily,  and  Henry  to  go  to  their  house."    However, 
go  they  did,  as  soon  as  their  parents'  backs  were 
turned  ;  and  Mrs.  Freeman  "  gave  them  each  a  large 
piece  of  cake  and  something  sweet  to  drink,  which, 
she  said,  would  do  them  good."     But  it  turned  out 
to  be  Cider,  and  did  not  do  them  good,  for,  "as 
they  were  never  used  to  drink  anything  but  water, 
it  made  them  quite  drunk  for  a  little  while." 


218  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

The  mention  of  Worcestershire  as  a  cider-grow- 
ing county  aptly  introduces  my  unfailing  friend 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  for,  though  he  is  less  precise 
than  I  could  wish  in  praise  of  Cider,  he  com- 
pliments it  indirectly  in  his  pretty  description 
of  "  a  fair  child,  long-haired,  and  blushing  like 
a  Worcestershire  orchard  before  harvest-time." 
Once,  indeed,  the  lover  of  Disraelitish  romance 
seems  to  find  himself  on  the  track  of  Cider. 
Harry  Coningsby  is  overtaken  by  a  thunderstorm 
in  a  forest,  and,  taking  refuge  in  a  sylvan  inn, 
makes  friends  with  a  mysterious  stranger.  The 
two  travellers  agree  to  dine  together,  when  this 
eminently  natural  dialogue  ensues.  "'But  Ceres 
without  Bacchus,'  said  Coningsby,  '  how  does  that 
do  ?  Think  you,  under  this  roof,  we  could  invoke 
the  god  ? ' 

"  '  Let  us  swear  by  his  body  that  we  will  try,' 
said  the  stranger. 

"  Alas  !  the  landlord  was  not  a  priest  of  Bacchus. 
But  then  these  enquiries  led  to  the  finest  Perry  in 
the  world."  If  only  the  Perry  had  been  Cider, 
this  quotation  had  been  more  apposite  ;  but  the 
themes,  though  not  identical,  are  cognate. 

We  have  traced  the  praise  of  Cider  in  poetry  and 
in  romance,  but  it  also  has  its  place  in  biography, 
and  even  in  religious  biography.  One  of  the  most 
delightful  portraits  of  a  saint  which  was  ever  drawn 
is  Mrs.  Oliphant's  "  Life  of  Edward  Irving."  In 
the  autumn  of  1834 — the  last  autumn  of  his  life — 
that    Prophet   and   man   of   God  made  a  kind  of 


CIDER  219 

apostolic  journey  through  Shropshire,  Hereford- 
shire, and  Wales.  From  Kington,  in  Herefordshire, 
he  wrote  to  his  wife  :  "  My  dinner  was  ham  and 
eggs,  a  cold  fowl,  an  apple  tart,  and  cheese  ;  a 
tumbler  of  Cider,  and  a  glass  of  Sicilian  Tokay." 
And  he  adds  a  tender  reference  to  "  Ginger  Wine 
in  a  long-necked  decanter."  It  is  always  satis- 
factory to  find  the  good  things  of  this  life  not 
reserved  exclusively  for  bad  people. 

Sydney  Smith,  though  a  Canon  of  St.  Paul's, 
was  scarcely  a  Saint  and  not  at  all  a  Prophet ; 
and  through  the  study-windows  of  his  beautiful 
parsonage  in  Somersetshire,  he  gazed  on  the 
glories  of  the  Cider-vintage  with  an  eye  more 
mundane  than  that  of  Edward  Irving.  In  1829  he 
wrote  from  Combe  Florey — "the  sacred  valley  of 
flowers,"  as  he  loved  to  call  it :  "I  continue  to  be 
delighted  with  the  country.  The  harvest  is  got  in 
without  any  rain.  The  Cider  is  such  an  enormous 
crop  that  it  is  sold  at  ten  shillings  a  hogshead  ;  so 
a  human  creature  may  lose  his  reason  for  a  penny." 

Cider  is,  I  believe,  still  drunk  at  Oxford ;  and 
memory  retains  grateful  recollections  of  Cider-cup 
beautiful  as  a  liquid  topaz,  with  a  cluster  of  blue 
flowers  floating  on  its  breast.  But  the  Cider-Cellars 
of  London — places  of,  I  fear,  ill-regulated  con- 
viviality— have,  as  far  as  I  know,  long  since  closed 
their  doors.  Yet  they,  too,  have  their  secure  place 
in  literature.  The  "  Young  Lion "  of  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  who  looked  forward  to  succeeding 
Dr.  W.  H.  Russell  as  War  Correspondent  of  the 


220  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Times,  thrilled  with  excitement  at  the  prospect 
of  inoculating  the  Leading  Journal  with  "the 
divine  madness  of  our  new  style — the  style  we 
have  formed  upon  Sala.  It  blends  the  airy  epi- 
cureanism of  the  salons  of  Augustus  with  the  full- 
bodied  gaiety  of  our  English  Cider  Cellar."  But 
that  was  written  in  1870,  and  the  style  and  the 
Cellars  alike  are  things  of  the  past.  The  official 
historian  of  Cider  excels  in  that  "  dry  light"  which 
is  the  grace  of  history,  and  gravely  tells  us  that 
"  Cider  (Zider,  German)  when  first  made  in  England 
was  called  wine."  With  a  proper  reluctance  to 
commit  himself  to  what  is  antecedently  incredible, 
he  adds  that  "  the  Earl  of  Manchester,  when  Am- 
bassador in  France  (1699),  is  said  to  have  passed 
off  Cider  for  Wine."  It  is  more  plausibly  stated 
that  in  later  days  the  innocuous  apple  has  been 
artfully  mingled  with  the  "  foaming  grape  of 
Eastern  France,"  and  has  been  drunk  in  England 
as  Champagne.  The  Hock-cup  at  Buckingham 
Palace  is  justly  vaunted  as  one  of  the  chief  glories 
of  our  ancient  polity.  It  is  certainly  the  most 
delectable  drink  that  ever  refreshed  a  thirsty  soul ; 
and  the  art  of  concocting  it  is  a  State-Secret  of  the 
most  awful  solemnity.  But  there  never  was  a 
secret  which  did  not  sooner  or  later  elude  its 
guardians  ;  and  I  have  heard  that  a  Royal  cellarer, 
in  an  expansive  moment,  once  revealed  the  spell. 
German  Wine  and  English  Cider  together  constitute 
the  Kingly  Cup, 

"  And,  blended,  form,  with  artful  strife, 
The  strength  and  harmony  of  life." 


XXX 

THE    GARTER 

"  Breathes  there  a  man,  with  soul  so  dead, 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said 

I  should  uncommonly  like  to  be  a  Knight  of  the 
Garter  ? "  If  such  there  be,  let  him  forswear  this 
column  and  pass  on  to  the  Cotton  Market  or  the 
Education  Bill.  Here  we  cater  for  those  in  whom 
the  historic  instinct  is  combined  with  picturesque 
sensibility,  and  who  love  to  trace  the  stream  of 
the  national  life  as  it  flows  through  long-descended 
rites.  Lord  Acton  wrote  finely  of  "Institutions 
which  incorporate  tradition  and  prolong  the  reign 
of  the  dead."  No  institution  fulfils  this  ideal  more 
absolutely  than  the  Order  of  the  Garter.  One 
need  not  always  "commence  with  the  Deluge"; 
and  there  is  no  occasion  to  consult  the  lively 
oracles  of  Mrs.  Markham  for  the  story  of  the 
dropped  garter  and  the  chivalrous  motto.  It  is 
enough  to  remember  that  the  Order  links  the  last 
enchantments  of  the  Middle  Age  with  the  Twentieth 
Century,  and  that  for  at  least  four  hundred  years 
it  has  played  a  real,  though  hidden,  part  in  the 
secret  strategy  of  English  Statecraft. 


222  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

We  are  told  by  travellers  that  the  Emperor  of 
Lilliput  rewarded  his  courtiers  with  three  fine 
silken  threads  of  about  six  inches  long,  one  of 
which  was  blue,  one  red,  and  one  green.  The 
method  by  which  these  rewards  were  obtained 
is  thus  described  by  an  eye-witness:  "The  Em- 
peror holds  a  stick  in  his  hands,  both  ends  parallel 
to  the  horizon,  while  the  candidates,  advancing 
one  by  one,  sometimes  leap  over  it,  sometimes 
creep  under  it,  backwards  and  forwards,  several 
times,  according  as  the  stick  is  elevated  or  de- 
pressed. Whoever  shows  the  most  agility  and 
performs  his  part  best  of  leaping  and  creeping  is 
rewarded  with  the  blue  coloured  silk,  the  next 
with  the  red,  and  so  on." 

To-day  we  are  not  concerned  with  the  red  silk, 
wisely  invented  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  could  not  aspire  to  the  blue  ; 
nor  with  the  green,  which  illustrates  the  continuous 
and  separate  polity  of  the  Northern  Kingdom. 
The  blue  silk  supplies  us  with  all  the  material  we 
shall  need.  In  its  wider  aspect  of  the  Blue 
Ribbon,  it  has  its  secure  place  in  the  art,  the 
history,  and  the  literature  of  England ;  though 
perhaps  the  Dryasdusts  of  future  ages  will  be 
perplexed  by  the  Manichaean  associations  which 
will  then  have  gathered  round  it.  "When,"  they 
will  ask,  "and  by  what  process,  did  the  ensign  of 
a  high  chivalric  Order  which  originated  at  a 
banquet  become  the  symbol  of  total  abstinence 
from  fermented  drinks  ?  "     Even  so,  a  high-toned 


THE    GARTER  223 

damsel  from  the  State  of  Maine,  regarding  the 
Blue  Ribbon  which  girt  Lord  Granville's  white 
waistcoat,  congratulated  him  on  the  boldness  with 
which  he  displayed  his  colours,  and  then  shrank 
back  in  astonished  horror  as  he  raised  his  claret- 
glass  to  his  lips.  In  one  of  the  prettiest  of 
historical  novels  Amy  Robsart  is  represented  as 
examining  with  childish  wonder  the  various  badges 
and  decorations  which  her  husband  wears,  while 
Leicester,  amused  by  her  simplicity,  explains  the 
significance  of  each.  "The  embroidered  strap,  as 
thou  callest  it,  around  my  knee,"  he  said,  "  is  the 
English  Garter,  an  ornament  which  Kings  are 
proud  to  wear.  See,  here  is  the  star  which  be- 
longs to  it,  and  here  is  the  diamond  George,  the 
jewel  of  the  Order.     You  have  heard   how   King 

Edward  and  the  Countess  of  Salisbury "     "Oh, 

I  know  all  that  tale,"  said  the  Countess,  slightly 
blushing,  "and  how  a  lady's  garter  became  the 
proudest  badge  of  English  chivalry." 

There  are  certain  families  which  may  be  styled 
"  Garter  Families,"  so  constant— almost  unbroken 
— has  been  the  tradition  that  the  head  of  the 
family  should  be  a  Knight  Companion  of  the  Most 
Noble  Order.  Such  is  the  House  of  Beaufort ;  is 
there  not  a  great  saloon  at  Badminton  walled 
entirely  with  portraits  of  Dukes  of  Beaufort  in 
their  flowing  mantles  of  Garter-Blue  ?  Such  is 
the  House  of  Bedford,  which  has  worn  the  Garter 
from  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  till  now;  such  the 
House  of  Norfolk,  which   contrived  to  retain   its 


224  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Garters,  though  it  often  lost  its  head,  in  times  of 
civil  commotion.  The  Dukes  of  Devonshire,  again, 
have  been  habitual  Garter-wearers  ;  and  the  four- 
teenth Earl  of  Derby,  though  he  refused  a  duke- 
dom, was  proud  to  accept  an  extra  Garter  (raising 
the  number  of  Knights  above  the  statutory  twenty- 
five),  which  Queen  Victoria  gave  him  as  a  consola- 
tion for  his  eviction  from  the  Premiership  in  1859. 
Punch,  then,  as  now,  no  respecter  of  persons, 
had  an  excellent  cartoon  of  a  blubbering  child,  to 
whom  a  gracious  lady  soothingly  remarks,  "  Did 
he  have  a  nasty  tumble,  then  ?  Here's  something 
pretty  for  him  to  play  with."  The  Percys,  again, 
were  pre-eminently  a  Garter  Family  ;  sixteen  heads 
of  the  house  have  worn  Blue  silk.  So  far  as  the 
male  line  was  concerned,  they  came  to  an  end  in 
1670.  The  eventual  heiress  of  the  house  married 
Sir  Hugh  Smithson,  who  acquired  the  estates  and 
assumed  the  name  of  the  historic  Percys.  Having, 
in  virtue  of  this  great  alliance,  been  created  Earl 
of  Northumberland,  Sir  Hugh  begged  George  III. 
to  give  him  the  Garter.  When  the  King  demurred, 
the  aspirant  exclaimed,  in  the  bitterness  of  his 
heart,  "  I  am  the  first  Northumberland  who  ever 
was  refused  the  Garter."  To  which  the  King  re- 
plied, not  unreasonably,  "And  you  are  the  first 
Smithson  who  ever  asked  for  it."  However,  there 
are  forms  of  political  pressure  to  which  even  Kings 
must  yield,  and  people  who  had  "  borough  in- 
fluence "  could  generally  get  their  way  when 
George  III.  wanted  some  trustworthy  votes  in 
the  House  of  Commons.     So  Sir  Hugh  Smithson 


THE    GARTER  225 

died  a  Duke  and  a  K.G.,  and  since  his  day  the 
Percys  have  been  continuously  Gartered. 

But  it  is  in  the  sphere  of  rank  just  below  that 
of  the  "Garter  Families"  that  the  Blue  silk  of 
Swift's  imagination  exercises  its  most  potent  in- 
fluence. Men  who  are  placed  by  the  circumstances 
of  their  birth  far  beyond  the  temptations  of  mere 
cupidity,  men  who  are  justly  satisfied  with  their 
social  position  and  have  no  special  wish  to  be 
transmogrified  into  marquises  or  dukes,  are  found 
to  desire  the  Garter  with  an  almost  passionate 
fondness.  Many  a  curious  vote  in  a  stand-or-fall 
division,  many  an  unexpected  declaration  at  a 
political  crisis,  many  a  transfer  of  local  influence 
at  an  important  election  has  been  dictated  by 
calculations  about  a  possible  Garter.  It  was  this 
view  of  the  decoration  which  inspired  Lord  Mel- 
bourne when,  to  the  suggestion  that  he  should  take 
a  vacant  Garter  for  himself,  he  replied,  "  But  why 
should  I  ?  I  don't  want  to  bribe  myself."  This 
same  light-hearted  statesman  disputes  with  Lord 
Palmerston  the  credit  of  having  said,  "The  great 

beauty   of   the  Garter   is   that    there's   no    d d 

nonsense  of  merit  about  it ; "  but  it  was  un- 
doubtedly Palmerston  who  declined  to  pay  the 
customary  fees  to  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of 
Windsor,  and  on  being  gravely  told  that,  unless 
he  paid,  his  banner  could  not  be  erected  in  St. 
George's  Chapel,  replied  that,  as  he  never  went  to 
church  at  Windsor  or  anywhere  else,  the  omission 
would  not  much  affect  him. 

P 


226  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

What  made  the  recent  Chapter  of  the  Garter 
peculiarly  exciting  to  such  as  have  aesthetic  as  well 
as  historic  minds  was  the  fact  that,  for  once,  the 
Knights  might  be  seen  in  the  full  splendour  of 
their  magnificent  costume.  No  other  Order  has 
so  elaborate  a  paraphernalia,  and  every  detail 
smacks  deliciously  of  the  antique  world.  The 
long,  sweeping  mantle  of  Garter-blue  is  worn  over 
a  surcoat  and  hood  of  crimson  velvet.  The  hat  is 
trimmed  with  ostrich  feathers  and  heron's  plumes. 
The  enamelled  collar  swings  majestically  from 
shoulder  to  shoulder ;  from  it  depends  the  image 
of  St.  George  trampling  down  the  dragon  ;  and 
round  the  left  knee  runs  the  Garter  itself,  setting 
forth  the  motto  of  the  Order  in  letters  of  gold. 
It  is  a  truly  regal  costume  ;  and  those  who  saw 
Lord  Spencer  so  arrayed  at  the  Coronation  of 
King  Edward  might  have  fancied  that  they  were 
gazing  on  an  animated  Vandyke.  These  full 
splendours  of  the  Order  are  seldom  seen,  but  some 
modifications  of  them  appear  on  stated  occasions. 
The  King  was  married  in  the  mantle  of  the  Garter, 
worn  over  a  Field-Marshal's  uniform ;  and  a 
similar  practice  is  observed  at  ceremonies  in  St. 
George's  Chapel.  The  Statutes  of  the  Order  bind 
every  Knight,  on  his  chivalric  obedience,  to  wear 
the  badge — the  "George,"  as  it  is  technically  called 
— at  all  times  and  places.  In  obedience  to  this  rule 
the  Marquis  of  Abercorn,  who  died  in  1818,  always 
went  out  shooting  in  the  Blue  Ribbon  from  which, 
in  ordinary  dress,  the  badge  depends.     But  those 


THE    GARTER  227 

were  the  days  when  people  played  cricket  in  tall 
hats  and  attended  the  House  of  Commons  in  knee- 
breeches  and  silk  stockings.  Prince  Albert,  whose 
conscience  in  ceremonial  matters  was  even  pain- 
fully acute,  always  wore  his  Blue  Ribbon  over  his 
shirt  and  below  his  waistcoat ;  and  in  his  ancient 
photographs  it  can  be  dimly  traced  crossing  his 
chest  in  the  neighbourhood  of  his  shirt  studs. 
But  to-day  one  chiefly  sees  it  at  dinners.  A  tradi- 
tion of  the  Order  requires  a  Knight  dining  with  a 
brother-Knight  to  wear  it,  and  after  dinner  one 
may  meet  it  at  an  evening  party.  The  disuse  of 
knee-breeches,  except  in  Royal  company,  makes  it 
practically  impossible  to  display  the  actual  Garter; 
unless  one  chooses  to  follow  the  example  of  the 
seventh  Duke  of  Bedford,  who,  being  of  a  skinny 
habit  and  feeling  the  cold  intensely,  yet  desiring 
to  display  his  Garter,  used  to  wear  it  buckled 
round  the  trouser  of  his  left  leg.  Lord  Beacons- 
field,  in  his  later  years,  used  to  appear  in  the 
evening  with  a  most  magnificent  Star  of  the  Garter 
which  had  belonged  to  the  wicked  Lord  Hertford, 
Thackeray's  Steyne  and  his  own  Monmouth.  It 
was  a  constellation  of  picked  diamonds,  surround- 
ing St.  George's  Cross  in  rubies.  After  Lord 
Beaconsfield's  death  it  was  exposed  for  sale  in  a 
jeweller's  window,  and  eventually  was  broken  up 
and  sold  piecemeal.  There  was  an  opportunity 
missed.  Lord  Rosebery  ought  to  have  bought  it, 
and  kept  it  by  him  until  he  was  entitled  to  wear  it. 
In  picture-galleries  one  can  trace  the  evolution 


228  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

of  the  Blue  Ribbon  through  several  shades  and 
shapes.  In  pictures  of  the  Tudor  and  Stuart 
periods  it  is  a  light  blue  ribbon,  worn  round  the 
neck,  with  the  George  hanging,  like  a  locket,  in 
front.  In  Georgian  pictures  the  ribbon  is  much 
darker,  and  is  worn  over  the  left  shoulder,  reaching 
down  to  the  right  thigh,  where  the  George  is 
displayed.  I  have  heard  that  the  alteration  of 
position  was  due  to  the  Duke  of  Monmouth,  who, 
when  a  little  boy,  accidentally  thrust  his  right  arm 
through  the  ribbon,  with  a  childish  grace  which 
fascinated  his  father.  The  change  of  colour  was 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  exiled  King  at  St.  Germain's 
affected  still  to  bestow  the  Order,  and  the  English 
ribbon  was  made  darker,  so  as  to  obviate  all 
possible  confusion  between  the  reality  and  the 
counterfeit.  Of  late  years,  this  reason  having 
ceased  to  operate,  the  King  has  returned  to  the 
lighter  shade. 

The  last  Commoner  who  wore  the  Garter  was 
Sir  Robert  Walpole.  Sir  Robert  Peel  refused  it. 
It  is  the  only  honour  which,  I  think,  Mr.  Gladstone 
could  have  accepted  without  loss  of  dignity.  For 
he  truly  was  a  Knight  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche, 
worthy  to  rank  with  those  to  whom,  in  the  purer 
days  of  chivalry,  the  Cross  of  St.  George  was  not 
the  reward  of  an  intrigue  but  the  symbol  of  a  faith. 


XXXI 

SHERIFFS 

The  late  Mr.  Evelyn  Philip  Shirley,  of  Ettington, 
the  most  enthusiastic  and  cultured  of  English 
antiquaries,  was  once  describing  the  procedure 
observed  on  the  rare  occasion  of  a  "  Free  Confer- 
ence" between  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  "The 
Lords,"  he  said,  "  sit  with  their  hats  on  their  heads. 
The  Commons  stand,  uncovered,  at  the  Bar  ;  and 
the  carpet  is  spread  not  on  the  floor  but  on  the 
table,  illustrating  the  phrase  '  on  the  tapis!  Those 
are  the  things  which  make  life  really  worth 
living." 

I  cannot  profess  to  equal  Mr.  Shirley  in  culture, 
but  I  yield  to  no  man  in  enthusiasm  for  antiquarian 
rites.  Like  Burke,  I  "piously  believe  in  the  mys- 
terious virtue  of  wax  and  parchment."  With  Mr. 
Gladstone,  I  say  that  "the  principle  which  gives  us 
ritual  in  Religion  gives  us  the  ceremonial  of  Courts, 
the  costume  of  judges,  the  uniform  of  regiments, 
all  the  language  of  heraldry  and  symbol,  all  the 
hierarchy  of  rank  and  title." 

My  antiquarian  enthusiasm  for  the  Garter  must 

not  be  allowed  to  brush  aside  the  more  obvious 

229 


230  SEEING   AND    HEARING 

topic  of  the  Sheriffs.  That  just  now1  is  a  topic 
which,  as  the  French  say,  palpitates  with  actuality. 
November  is  the  Sheriffs'  month  ;  in  it  they  bloom 
like  chrysanthemums — doomed,  alas  !  to  as  brief  a 
splendour.  The  Sheriffs  of  London  and  Middlesex 
— those  glorious  satellites  who  revolve  round  the 
Lord  Mayor  of  London  as  the  Cardinals  round  the 
Pope — are  already  installed.  Their  state  carriages 
of  dazzling  hue,  and  their  liveries  stiff  with  gold 
bullion,  have  flung  their  radiance  (as  the  late  Mr.  J. 
R.  Green  would  have  said)  over  the  fog  and  filth 
of  our  autumnal  climate. 

"  Who  asketh  why  the  Beautiful  was  made  ? 
A  wan  cloud  drifting  o'er  the  waste  of  blue, 
The  thistledown  that  floats  along  the  glade, 
The  lilac  blooms  of  April— fair  to  view, 
And  naught  but  fair  are  these  ;  and  such  I 
ween  are  you. 
Yes,  ye  are  beautiful.     The  young  street  boys 
Joy  in  your  beauty " 

But  I  am  becoming  rhapsodical,  and  with  less 
excuse  than  "  C.  S.  C,"  whose  poetic  fire  was 
kindled  by  the  sight  of  the  Beadles  in  the  Burling- 
ton Arcade. 

On  Monday  the  12th  of  November,  being  the 
morrow  of  St.  Martin,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, in  clothing  of  wrought  gold  and  figured 
silk,  attending  the  ghost  of  what  was  once  the 
Court  of  Exchequer,  nominates  three  gentlemen 
of  good  estate  to  serve  the  office  of  High  Sheriff 

1  November  1896. 


SHERIFFS  231 

for  each  of  the  counties  of  England.  Be  it  re- 
marked in  passing  that  the  robe  of  black  and 
gold  which  the  Chancellor  wears  on  this  occasion 
is  that  which  Mr.  Gladstone's  statue  in  the  Strand 
represents,  and  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
wore  at  the  opening  of  the  Law  Courts  in  De- 
cember 1882,  when,  to  the  astonishment  of  the 
unlearned,  he  walked  in  procession  among  the 
Judges. 

Early  in  the  new  year — on  "the  morrow  of  the 
Purification  "  to  wit — the  Lord  President  of  the 
Council  submits  the  names  of  the  nominated 
Sheriffs,  duly  engrossed  on  parchment,  to  the 
King,  who  then,  with  a  silver  bodkin,  "pricks"  the 
name  of  the  gentleman  who  in  each  county  seems 
the  fittest  of  the  three  for  the  august  and  perilous 
office  of  High  Sheriff. 

I  love  to  handle  great  things  greatly  ;  so  I  have 
refreshed  my  memory  with  the  constitutional  lore 
of  this  high  theme.  The  etymology  of  "  Sheriff  " 
I  find  to  be  (on  the  indisputable  authority  of  Dr. 
Dryasdust)  a  Scirgerefa — the  'Reeve'  or  Fiscal 
Officer  of  a  Shire."  In  the  Saxon  twilight  of  our 
national  history  this  Reeve,  not  yet  developed  into 
Sheriff,  ranked  next  in  his  county  to  the  Bishop 
and  the  Ealdorman,  or  Earl.  In  those  days  of 
rudimentary  self-government,  the  Reeve  was  elected 
by  popular  vote,  but  Edward  II.,  who  seems  to 
have  been  a  bureaucrat  before  his  time,  abolished 
the  form  of  election  except  as  regards  the  cities, 
and  from  his  time  onwards  the  High  Sheriff  of  a 


232  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

county  has  been  a  nominated  officer.  Until  the 
days  of  the  Tudors,  the  High  Sheriff  wielded  great 
and  miscellaneous  powers.  He  was  the  military 
head  of  the  county.  He  commanded  the  "  Posse 
Comitatus,"  in  which  at  his  bidding  every  male 
over  fifteen  was  forced  to  serve  ;  and  he  was,  in 
all  matters  of  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction,  the 
executant  and  minister  of  the  law. 

Quomodo  ceciderunt  fortes  !  Henry  VIII.  at  one 
fell  swoop  terminated  the  Sheriff's  military  power 
and  made  the  new-fangled  Lord-Lieutenant  com- 
mander of  the  local  forces ;  and  successive  Acts 
of  Parliament  have,  by  increasing  the  powers  of 
courts  and  magistracies,  reduced  the  civil  power  of 
the  Sheriff  to  a  dismal  shadow  of  its  former  great- 
ness. Still,  in  the  person  of  his  unromantic  repre- 
sentative, the  "  Bound  Bailiff,"  he  watches  the 
execution  of  civil  process  in  the  case  of  those  who, 
to  use  a  picturesque  phrase,  have  "  outrun  the 
constable  "  ;  still,  with  all  the  pantomimic  pomp 
of  coach  and  footmen,  trumpeters  and  javelin-men, 
he  conducts  the  Judges  of  Assize  to  and  from  the 
court ;  and  still  he  must  be  present  in  court  when 
the  capital  sentence  is  pronounced.  I  believe  I  am 
right  in  stating  that  there  is  no  such  document  as  a 
"  Death-warrant "  known  to  English  jurisprudence. 
The  only  wairant  for  the  execution  of  a  felon  is 
the  verbal  sentence  of  the  Judge  pronounced  in 
open  court ;  and,  as  the  High  Sheriff  is  respon- 
sible for  the  due  execution  of  that  sentence,  he 
must  be  present  when  it  is  pronounced,  in  order 


SHERIFFS  233 

that  he  may  know,  by  the  evidence  of  his  own 
eyes,  that  the  person  brought  out  for  execution  is 
the  person  on  whom  the  sentence  was  pronounced. 
It  is  probable  that  many  of  my  readers  recollect 
the  first  Lord  Tollemache,  a  man  who  combined 
singular  gifts  of  physical  strength  with  a  delicate 
humanitarianism.  He  had  been  High  Sheriff  of 
Cheshire  in  very  early  life,  and,  till  he  was  elevated 
to  the  Peerage,  it  was  possible  that  his  turn  might 
come  round  again.  Contemplating  this  contin- 
gency, he  said  that  if  he  were  again  charged  with 
the  execution  of  a  capital  sentence,  he  should, 
on  his  own  authority,  offer  the  condemned  man 
a  dose  of  chloroform,  so  that,  if  he  chose,  he 
might  go  unconscious  to  his  doom. 

The  duties  connected  with  the  capital  sentence 
are,  of  course,  infinitely  the  most  trying  of  those 
which  befall  a  High  Sheriff;  but  even  in  other 
respects  his  lot  is  not  an  unmixed  pleasure.  If 
he  is  a  poor  man,  the  expense  of  conducting  the 
Assizes  with  proper  dignity  is  considerable.  A 
sensitive  man  does  not  like  to  hear  invidious 
comparisons  between  his  carriages,  horses,  and 
liveries,  and  those  of  his  predecessor  in  office. 
He  winces  under  the  imputation  of  an  unworthy 
economy  ;  and,  if  his  equipage  was  conspicuously 
unequal  to  the  occasion,  the  Judges  have  been 
known  to  express  their  displeasure  by  sarcasms, 
protests,  and  even  fines.  The  fining  power  of  a 
Judge  on  circuit  is  a  mysterious  prerogative.  I 
have  no  notion  whether  it  is  restrained  by  statu- 


234  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

tory  limitations,  by  what  process  the  fine  is  en- 
forced, or  into  whose  pocket  it  finds  its  way. 
Some  years  ago  the  High  Sheriff  of  Surrey  pub- 
lished a  placard  at  the  Guildford  Assizes  setting 
forth  that  the  public  were  excluded  from  the 
court  by  the  judge's  order  and  in  defiance  of 
law,  and  warning  his  subordinate  officers  against 
giving  effect  to  the  order  for  exclusion.  The 
Judge  pronounced  the  placard  "a  painfully  con- 
tumacious contempt  of  the  Court,"  and  fined  the 
High  Sheriff  ^500.  My  memory  does  not  re- 
call, and  the  records  do  not  state,  whether  the 
mulcted  officer  paid  up  or  climbed  down. 

If  the  High  Sheriff  has  a  friend  or  kinsman 
in  Holy  Orders,  the  Assizes  afford  an  excellent 
opportunity  of  bringing  him  to  public  notice  in 
the  capacity  of  Sheriff's  Chaplain  ;  for  the  Chap- 
lain preaches  before  the  Judges  at  the  opening 
of  the  Assize,  and,  if  he  is  ambitious  of  fame, 
he  can  generally  contrive  to  make  something 
of  the  occasion.  But  few  Chaplains,  I  should 
think,  have  emulated  the  courage  of  Sydney  Smith, 
who  at  the  York  Assizes  in  1824  rebuked  the 
besetting  sins  of  Bench  and  Bar  in  two  remark- 
ably vigorous  sermons  on  these  suggestive  themes 
— "The  Judge  that  smites  contrary  to  the  Law" 
and  "The  Lawyer  that  tempted  Christ." 

Broadly,  I  suppose  it  may  be  said  that  the 
people  who  really  enjoy  being  High  Sheriffs  are 
not  those  who,  by  virtue  of  long  hereditary  con- 
nexion  with   the   soil,   are   to   the  manner  born ; 


SHERIFFS  235 

but  rather  those  who  by  commercial  industry 
have  accumulated  capital,  and  have  invested  it 
in  land  with  a  view  to  founding  a  family.  To 
such,  the  hospitalities  paid  and  the  deference 
received,  the  quaint  splendour  of  the  Assize,  and 
the  undisputed  precedence  over  the  gentlemen 
of  the  County,  are  joys  not  lightly  to  be  esteemed. 
When  Lothair  was  arranging  the  splendid  cere- 
monial for  his  famous  Coming  of  Age,  he  said 
to  the  Duchess,  "There  is  no  doubt  that,  in  the 
County,  the  High  Sheriff  takes  precedence  of 
every  one,  even  of  the  Lord-Lieutenant ;  but  how 
about  his  wife  ?  I  believe  there  is  some  tremen- 
dous question  about  the  lady's  precedence.  We 
ought  to  have  written  to  the  Heralds'  College." 
The  Duchess  graciously  gave  Mrs.  High  Sheriff 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  and  the  ceremonies 
went  forward  without  a  hitch.  On  the  night  of 
the  great  banquet  Lothair  looked  round,  and 
then,  "in  an  audible  voice,  and  with  a  stateliness 
becoming  such  an  incident,  called  upon  the  High 
Sheriff  to  lead  the  Duchess  to  the  table.  Although 
that  eminent  man  had  been  thinking  of  nothing 
else  for  days,  and  during  the  last  half-hour  had 
felt  as  a  man  feels,  and  can  only  feel,  who  knows 
that  some  public  function  is  momentarily  about 
to  fall  to  his  perilous  discharge,  he  was  taken 
quite  aback,  changed  colour,  and  lost  his  head. 
But  Lothair's  band,  who  were  waiting  at  the  door 
of  the  apartment  to  precede  the  procession  to 
the  hall,  striking  up  at  this  moment  "The  Roast 


236  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Beef  of  Old  England,"  reanimated  his  heart,  and, 
following  Lothair  and  preceding  all  the  other 
guests  down  the  gallery  and  through  many  cham- 
bers, he  experienced  the  proudest  moment  in  a 
life  of  struggle,  ingenuity,  vicissitude,  and  success." 


XXXII 

PUBLISHERS 

There  is  a  passage  in  Selden's  "  Table-Talk " 
which,  if  I  recollect  it  aright,  may  be  paraphrased 
in  some  such  form  as  this  :  The  Lion,  reeking  of 
slaughter,  met  his  neighbour  the  Sheep,  and,  after 
exchanging  the  time  of  day  with  her,  asked  her  if 
his  breath  smelt  of  blood.  She  replied  "  Yes," 
whereupon  he  snapped  off  her  head  for  a  fool. 
Immediately  afterwards  he  met  the  Jackal,  to 
whom  he  addressed  the  same  question.  The 
Jackal  answered  "  No,"  and  the  Lion  tore  him  in 
pieces  for  a  flatterer.  Last  of  all  he  met  the  Fox, 
and  asked  the  question  a  third  time.  The  Fox 
replied  that  he  had  a  cold  in  his  head,  and  could 
smell  nothing.  Moral:  "Wise  men  say  little  in 
dangerous  times."  The  bearing  of  this  aphorism 
on  my  present  subject  is  sufficiently  obvious  ;  the 
"  times  "  —  not  Times  —  are  "  dangerous  "  alike 
for  authors  and  publishers,  and  "  wise  men  "  will 
"say  little"  about  current  controversies,  lest  they 
should  have  their  heads  snapped  off  by  Mr.  Lucas 
and  Mr.  Graves,  or  be  torn  in  pieces  by  Mr. 
Moberley  Bell. 

Thus  warned,  I  turn  my  thoughts  to  Publishers 

237 


238  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

as  they  have  existed  in  the  past,  and  more  parti- 
cularly to  their  relations  with  the  authors  whose 
works  they  have  given  to  the  world.  How  happy 
those  relations  may  be,  when  maintained  with  tact 
and  temper  on  both  sides,  is  well  illustrated  by 
an  anecdote  of  that  indefatigable  penwoman,  "  the 
gorgeous  Lady  Blessington."  Thinking  herself 
injured  by  some  delay  on  the  part  of  her  pub- 
lishers, Messrs.  Sanders  &  Otley,  she  sent  her 
son-in-law,  the  irrepressible  Count  D'Orsay,  to 
remonstrate.  The  Count  was  received  by  a  digni- 
fied gentleman  in  a  stiff  white  cravat,  whom  he 
proceeded  to  assail  with  the  most  vigorous  invec- 
tive, until  the  cravated  gentleman  could  stand  it 
no  longer  and  roundly  declared  that  he  would 
sacrifice  Lady  Blessington's  patronage  sooner  than 
subject  himself  to  personal  insult.  "  Personal  ?  " 
exclaimed  the  lively  Count.  "There's  nothing  per- 
sonal  in   my   remarks.      If    you're    Sanders,   then 

d Otley  ;  if  you're  Otley,  then  d Sanders." 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  a  similar  imprecation  has 
often  formed  itself  in  the  heart,  though  it  may  not 
have  issued  from  the  lips,  of  a  baulked  and  dis- 
illusioned author.  Though  notoriously  the  most 
long-suffering  of  a  patient  race,  the  present  writer 
has  before  now  felt  inclined  to  borrow  the  vigorous 
invective  of  Count  D'Orsay.  Some  six  months 
before  American  copyright  was,  after  long  negotia- 
tion, secured  for  English  authors,  Messrs.  Popgood 
and  Groolly  (I  borrow  the  names  from  Sir  Frank 
Burnand)  arranged  with  me  for  the  publication  of 


PUBLISHERS  239 

a  modest  work.  It  was  quite  ready  for  publication, 
but  the  experienced  publishers  pointed  out  the  desir- 
ability of  keeping  it  back  till  the  new  law  of  copy- 
right came  into  force,  for  there  was  a  rich  harvest 
to  be  reaped  in  America  ;  and  all  the  American 
profits,  after,  say,  five  thousand  copies  were  sold, 
were  to  be  mine  alone.  A  year  later  I  received 
a  cheque,  18s.  6d.,  which,  I  imagine,  bore  the  same 
relation  to  the  American  profits  as  Mrs.  Crupp's 
"  one  cold  kidney  on  a  cheese-plate  "  bore  to  the 
remains  of  David  Copperfield's  feast.  On  enquiry 
I  was  soothingly  informed  by  Popgood  and  Groolly 
that  the  exact  number  of  copies  sold  in  America 
was  5005,  and  that  the  cheque  represented  (as  per 
agreement)  the  royalty  on  the  copies  sold,  over  and 
above  the  first  five  thousand.  That  the  publishers 
should  have  so  accurately  estimated  the  American 
sale  seemed  to  me  a  remarkable  instance  of  com- 
mercial foresight. 

Not  much  more  amiable  are  the  feelings  of  the 
author  towards  the  publisher  who  declines  his 
wares  ;  and  I  have  always  felt  that  Washington 
Irving  must  have  had  a  keen  and  legitimate  satis- 
faction in  prefixing  to  his  immensely  popular 
"Sketch-Book"  the  flummery  in  which  old  John 
Murray  wrapped  up  his  refusal  of  the  manuscript  : — 

"  I  entreat  you  to  believe  that  I  feel  truly  obliged 
by  your  kind  intentions  towards  me,  and  that  I 
entertain  the  most  unfeigned  respect  for  your  most 
tasteful  talents.  If  it  would  not  suit  me  to  engage 
in  the  publication  of  your  present  work,  it  is  only 


240  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

because  I  do  not  see  that  scope  in  the  nature  of  it 
which  would  enable  me  to  make  those  satisfactory 
accounts  between  us  which  I  really  feel  no  satisfac- 
tion in  engaging." 

Now,  surely,  as  Justice  Shallow  says,  good  phrases 
are,  and  ever  were,  very  commendable.  While 
Murray  dealt  in  good  phrases,  his  rival  Longman 
expressed  himself  through  the  more  tangible 
medium  of  good  cheques.  He  was  the  London 
publisher,  and  apparently  the  financier,  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  and,  according  to  Sydney 
Smith's  testimony,  his  fiscal  system  was  simplicity 
itself.  "  I  used  to  send  in  a  bill  in  these  words, 
'  Messrs.  Longman  &  Co.  to  the  Rev.  Sydney 
Smith.  To  a  very  wise  and  witty  article  on  such 
a  subject ;  so  many  sheets,  at  forty-five  guineas 
a  sheet,'  and  the  money  always  came."  Here  is 
another  passage  from  the  financial  dealings  of  the 
same  great  house,  which  during  the  last  fifty  years 
has  caused  many  a  penman's  mouth  to  water. 
On  the  7th  of  March  1856  Macaulay  wrote  in 
his  diary  :  "  Longman  came,  with  a  very  pleasant 
announcement.  He  and  his  partners  find  that 
they  are  overflowing  with  money,  and  think  that 
they  cannot  invest  it  better  than  by  advancing 
to  me,  on  the  usual  terms  of  course,  part  of  what 
will  be  due  to  me  in  December.  We  agreed  that 
they  shall  pay  twenty  thousand  pounds  into 
Williams's  Bank  next  week.  What  a  sum  to 
be  gained  by  one  edition  of  a  book !  I  may 
say,   gained   in    one  day.      But  that  was  harvest- 


PUBLISHERS  241 

day.  The  work  had  been  near  seven  years  in 
hand." 

After  that  glorious  instance,  all  tales  of  profit 
from  books  seem  flat  and  insignificant.  As  a  rule, 
we  have  to  reckon  our  makings  on  a  far  more 
modest  scale.  "  Sir,"  said  an  enthusiastic  lady 
to  Mr.  Zangwill,  "I  admire  'The  Children  of  the 
Ghetto '  so  much  that  I  have  read  it  eight  times." 
"  Madam,"  replied  Mr.  Zangwill,  "'  I  would  rather 
you  had  bought  eight  copies."  Even  so,  with  our 
exiguous  profit  on  eight  copies  duly  sold,  our  state 
is  more  gracious  than  that  of  more  deserving  men. 
Here  is  a  touching  vignette  from  a  book  of  travels, 
which  was  popular  in  my  youth  :  u  At  table  d'hote 
there  is  a  charming  old  gentleman  who  has  trans- 
lated ^Eschylus  and  Euripides  into  English  verse ; 
he  has  been  complimented  by  the  greatest  scholars 
of  the  day,  and  his  publishers  have  just  sent  him  in 
his  bill  for  printing,  and  a  letter  to  know  what 
the  deuce  they  shall  do  with  the  first  thousand." 

Such  are  the  joys  of  publishing  at  one's  own 
risk.  Hardly  more  exhilarating  is  the  experience 
of  knocking  at  all  the  doors  in  Paternoster  Row, 
or  Albemarle  Street,  or  Waterloo  Place,  and  im- 
ploring the  stony-hearted  publisher  to  purchase 
one's  modest  wares.  Old  John  Murray's  soothing 
formula  about  "most  tasteful  talents"  has  been  re- 
produced, with  suitable  variations,  from  that  time 
to  this.  No  one  experienced  it  oftener  than  the 
late  Mr.  Shorthouse,  whose  one  good  book — "John 
Inglesant " — made  the  rounds  of  the  Trade,  until  at 

Q 


242  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

length  Messrs.  Macmillan  recognized  its  strange 
power.  In  their  hands,  as  every  one  knows,  the 
book  prospered  exceedingly,  and  the  publishers 
who  had  rejected  it  were  consumed  by  remorse. 
In  this  connexion  my  friend  Mr.  James  Payn  used 
to  tell  a  story  which  outweighs  a  great  many  acrid 
witticisms  about  "  Barabbas  was  a  Publisher  "  and 
Napoleon's  one  meritorious  action  in  hanging  a 
Bookseller.  Payn  was  "  reader "  to  Smith  and 
Elder,  and  in  that  capacity  declined  the  manu- 
script of  "  John  Inglesant."  Some  years  afterwards 
this  fact  was  stated  in  print,  together  with  an  esti- 
mate of  what  his  error  had  cost  his  firm.  Payn, 
who  was  the  last  man  to  sit  down  patiently  under  a 
calumny,  told  the  late  Mr.  George  Smith  that  he 
felt  bound  in  self-respect  to  contradict  a  story  so 
derogatory  to  his  literary  judgment.  "  If  I  were 
you,"  replied  Mr.  Smith,  "  I  wouldn't  do  that,  for, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  you  did  reject  the  manuscript, 
and  we  have  lost  what  Macmillans  have  gained.  I 
never  told  you,  because  I  knew  it  would  annoy 
you ;  and  I  only  tell  you  now  to  prevent  you  from 
contradicting  '  an  ower  true  tale.'  "  Payn  used  to 
say  that,  in  all  the  annals  of  business,  considerate 
forbearance  had  never  been  better  exemplified. 
Against  this  story  of  his  failure  to  perceive  merit 
Payn  was  wont  to  set  his  discovery  of  Mr.  Anstey 
Guthrie.  The  manuscript  of  "Vice  Versa,"  bearing 
the  unknown  name  of  "  F.  Anstey,"  came  in  ordi- 
nary course  into  his  hands.  He  glanced  at  the 
first  page,  turned  over,  read  to  the  end,  and  then 


PUBLISHERS  243 

ran  into  Mr.  Smith's  room  saying,  "  We've  got  the 
funniest  thing  that  has  been  written  since  Dickens's 
1  Christmas  Carol.'  "  And  the  public  gave  unequi- 
vocal evidence  that  it  concurred  in  the  verdict. 

Let  a  "  smooth  tale  of  love  "  close  these  reminis- 
cences of  Publishers.  Some  forty  years  ago,  when 
all  young  and  ardent  spirits  had  caught  the  sacred 
fire  of  Italian  freedom  from  Garibaldi  and  Swin- 
burne and  Mrs.  Browning,  a  young  lady,  nurtured 
in  the  straitest  of  Tory  homes,  was  inspired — it  is 
hardly  too  strong  a  word — to  write  a  book  of  ballads 
in  which  the  heroes  and  the  deeds  of  the  Italian 
Revolution  were  glorified.  She  knew  full  well  that, 
if  she  were  detected,  her  father  would  have  a  stroke 
and  her  mother  would  lock  her  up  in  the  spare 
bedroom.  So,  in  sending  her  manuscript  to  a 
publisher,  she  passed  herself  off  as  a  man.  Her 
vigorous  and  vehement  style,  her  strong  grasp 
of  the  political  situation,  and  her  enjoyment  of 
battle  and  bloodshed,  contributed  to  the  illusion  ; 
her  poems  were  published  anonymously  ;  other 
volumes  followed  ;  and  for  several  years  the  pub- 
lisher addressed  his  contributor  as  "  Esquire."  At 
length  it  chanced  that  both  publisher  and  poetess 
were  staying,  unknown  to  each  other,  at  the  same 
seaside  place.  Her  letter,  written  from — let  us  say 
— Brighton,  reached  him  at  Brighton  ;  so,  instead 
of  answering  by  post,  he  went  to  the  hotel  and 
asked  for  Mr.  Talbot,  or  whatever  great  Tory  name 
you  prefer.  The  porter  said,  "  There  is  no  Mr. 
Talbot  staying  here.     There  is  a  Miss  Talbot,  and 


244  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

she  may  be  able  to  give  you  some  information." 
So  Miss  Talbot  was  produced  ;  the  secret  of  the 
authorship  was  disclosed  ;  and  the  negotiations 
took  an  entirely  new  turn,  which  ended  in  making 
the  poetess  the  publisher's  wife. 


XXXIII 

HANDWRITING 

When  "The  Book  of  Snobs"  was  appearing  week 
by  week  in  Punch,  Thackeray  derived  constant 
aid  from  suggestive  correspondents.  " '  Why  only 
attack  the  aristocratic  Snobs  ? '  says  one  estimable 
gentleman.  '  Are  not  the  snobbish  Snobs  to  have 
their  turn  ?  '  '  Pitch  into  the  University  Snobs  ! ' 
writes  an  indignant  correspondent  (who  spells 
elegant  with  two  l's)." 

Similarly,  if  I  may  compare  small  things  with 
great,  I  am  happy  in  the  possession  of  an  unknown 
friend  who,  from  time  to  time,  supplies  me  with 
references  to  current  topics  which  he  thinks  suit- 
able to  my  gentle  methods  of  criticism.  My  friend 
(unlike  Thackeray's  correspondent)  can  spell  elegant, 
and  much  longer  words  too,  with  faultless  accuracy, 
and  is  altogether,  as  I  judge,  a  person  of  much 
culture.  It  is  this  circumstance,  I  suppose  (for  he 
has  no  earthly  connexion  with  the  Army),  which 
makes  him  feel  so  keenly  about  a  cutting  from  a 
newspaper  which  he  has  just  sent  us  : — 

"  In  a  report  just  issued  by  the  War  Office  on 
the   result  of   examinations   for    promotion    many 

2*5 


246  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

officers  are  said  to  be  handicapped  by  their  bad 
handwriting.  Some  show  of  '  want  of  intelligence, 
small  power  of  expression,  poor  penmanship — in 
fact,  appear  to  suffer  from  defective  education.' 

"On  the  other  hand,  the  work  of  non-commis- 
sioned officers  shows  intelligence  and  power  of 
concise  expression,  while  penmanship  is  good. 

"  But  the  percentage  of  failures  among  the  officers 
shows  a  large  decrease — from  22  per  cent,  in 
November  1904  to  13  per  cent,  in  May  last.  The 
improvement  is  particularly  noticeable  among  lieu- 
tenants. It  is  apparent,  says  the  report,  that  a 
serious  effort  is  being  made  by  the  commissioned 
ranks  to  master  all  the  text-books  and  other  aids  to 
efficiency." 

"This,"  says  my  correspondent,  "is  a  shameful 
disclosure.  Cannot  you  say  something  about 
it  in  print  ? "  Inclining  naturally  to  the  more 
favourable  view  of  my  fellow-creatures,  I  pre- 
fer to  reflect,  not  on  the  "  poor  penmanship " 
and  "  defective  education  "  of  my  military  friends, 
but  on  their  manly  efforts  after  self-improvement. 
There  is  something  at  once  pathetic  and  edifying 
in  the  picture  of  these  worthy  men,  each  of  whom 
has  probably  cost  his  father  ^200  a  year  for 
education  ever  since  he  was  ten  years  old,  making 
their  "  serious  effort  to  master  the  text-books 
and  other  aids  to  efficiency,"  in  the  humble  hope 
that  their  writing  may  some  day  rival  that  of 
the  non-commissioned  officers. 

It  was  not  ever  thus.     These  laudable,  though 


HANDWRITING  247 

lowly,  endeavours  after  Culture  are  of  recent 
growth  in  the  British  Army.  Fifty  years  ago,  if 
we  may  trust  contemporary  evidence,  the  Unedu- 
cated Subaltern  developed,  by  a  natural  process, 
into  the  Uneducated  General. 

"I  have  always,"  said  Thackeray  in  1846,  "ad- 
mired that  dispensation  of  rank  in  our  country 
which  sets  up  a  budding  Cornet,  who  is  shaving 
for  a  beard  (and  who  was  flogged  only  last  week 
because  he  could  not  spell),  to  command  great 
whiskered  warriors  who  have  faced  all  dangers 
of  climate  and  battle."  Because  he  could  not 
spell.  The  same  infirmity  accompanied  the 
Cornet  into  the  higher  grades  of  his  profession — 
witness  Captain  Rawdon  Crawley's  memorandum 
of  his  available  effects  :  "  My  double-barril  by 
Manton,  say  40  guineas  ;  my  duelling  pistols  in 
rosewood  case  (same  which  I  shot  Captain  Marker) 
£10."  And,  even  when  the  Cornet  had  blossomed 
into  a  General,  his  education  was  still  far  from 
complete  :  "  A  man  can't  help  being  a  fool,  be 
he  ever  so  old,  and  Sir  George  Tufto  is  a  greater 
ass  at  sixty-eight  than  he  was  when  he  entered 
the  army  at  fifteen.  He  never  read  a  book  in 
his  life,  and,  with  his  purple,  old,  gouty  fingers, 
still  writes  a  schoolboy  hand." 

But  do  Soldiers  write  a  worse  hand  than  other 
people  ?  I  rather  doubt  it,  and  certain  I  am  that 
several  of  my  friends,  highly  placed  in  Church 
and  politics  and  law,  would  do  very  well  to  apply 
themselves  for  a  season  to  those  "  text-books  and 


248  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

other  aids  to  efficiency "  by  which  the  zealous 
Subaltern  seeks  to  complete  his  "  defective  educa- 
tion." 

Mr.  Gladstone  was  accustomed  to  say  that  in 
public  life  he  had  known  only  two  perfect  things 
— Sir  Robert  Peel's  voice  and  Lord  Palmerston's 
writing.  The  former  we  can  know  only  by  tradi- 
tion ;  the  latter  survives,  for  the  instruction  of 
mankind,  in  folios  of  voluminous  despatches,  all 
written  in  a  hand  at  once  graceful  in  form  and 
absolutely  clear  to  read.  "The  wayfaring  men" 
of  Diplomacy,  though  sometimes  "  fools,"  could 
not  il  err "  in  the  interpretation  of  Palmerston's 
despatches.  The  same  excellence  of  caligraphy 
which  Palmerston  himself  practised  he  rightly 
required  from  his  subordinates.  If  a  badly  written 
despatch  came  into  his  hands,  he  would  embellish 
it  with  scathing  rebukes,  and  return  it,  through  the 
Office,  to  the  offending  writer.  The  recipient  of 
one  of  these  admonitions  thus  recalls  its  terms, 
"  Tell  the  gentleman  who  copied  this  despatch 
to  write  a  larger,  rounder  hand,  to  join  the  letters 
in  the  words,  and  to  use  blacker  ink." 

If  Lord  Palmerston  stood  easily  first  among 
the  penmen  of  his  time,  the  credit  of  writing  the 
worst  hand  in  England  was  divided  among  at 
least  three  claimants.  First  there  was  Lord 
Houghton,  whose  strange,  tall,  upright  strokes, 
all  exactly  like  each  other  except  in  so  far  as 
they  leaned  in  different  directions,  Lord  Tenny- 
son likened  to  "walking-sticks  gone  mad.""     Then 


HANDWRITING  249 

there  was  my  dear  friend  Mr.  James  Payn,  who 
described  his  own  hand  only  too  faithfully  when 
he  wrote  about  "the  wandering  of  a  centipede 
which  had  just  escaped  from  the  inkpot  and  had 
scrawled  and  sprawled  over  the  paper,"  and  whose 
closest  friends  always  implored  him  to  correspond 
by  telegraph.  And,  finally,  there  was  the  "  bad 
eminence  "  of  Dean  Stanley,  whose  lifelong  indul- 
gence in  hieroglyphics  inflicted  a  permanent  loss 
on  literature.  The  Dean,  as  all  readers  of  his 
biography  will  remember,  had  a  marked  turn  for 
light  and  graceful  versification.  The  albums  and 
letter-caskets  of  his  innumerable  friends  were  full 
of  these  "occasional"  verses,  in  which  domestic, 
political,  and  ecclesiastical  events  were  prettily 
perpetuated.  After  his  death  his  sister,  Mrs. 
Vaughan,  tried  to  collect  these  fugitive  pieces  in 
a  Memorial  Volume,  but  an  unforeseen  difficulty 
occurred.  In  many  cases  the  recipients  of  the 
poems  were  dead  and  gone,  and  no  living  creature 
could  decipher  the  Dean's  writing.  So  what  might 
have  been  a  pretty  and  instructive  volume  perished 
untimely. 

Jane  Maxwell,  Duchess  of  Gordon,  the  brilliant 
dame  who  raised  the  Gordon  Highlanders  and 
who  played  on  the  Tory  side  the  part  which  the 
Duchess  of  Devonshire  played  among  the  Whigs, 
had,  like  our  English  Subalterns,  a  very  imperfect 
education  ;  but  with  great  adroitness  she  covered 
her  deficiences  with  a  cloak  of  seeming  humour. 
"Whenever,"  she  wrote  to   Sir  Walter   Scott,  "I 


250  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

come  to  a  word  which  I  cannot  spell,  I  write  it 
as  near  as  I  can,  and  put  a  note  of  exclamation 
after  it ;  so  that,  if  it's  wrong,  my  friend  will  think 
that  I  was  making  a  joke."  A  respected  member 
of  the  present  Cabinet  who  shares  Duchess  Jane's 
orthographical  weakness  covers  his  retreat  by 
drawing  a  long,  involuted  line  after  the  initial 
letter  of  each  word.  Let  the  reader  write,  say, 
the  word  u  aluminium "  on  this  principle ;  and 
he  will  see  how  very  easily  imperfect  spelling  in 
high  places  may  be  concealed. 

With  soldiers  this  chapter  began,  and  with  a 
soldier  it  shall  end — the  most  illustrious  of  them 
all,  Arthur,  Duke  of  Wellington.  Let  it  be  re- 
corded for  the  encouragement  of  our  modern 
Subalterns  that  the  Duke,  though  he  spelled  much 
better  than  Captain  Crawley,  wrote  quite  as  badly 
as  Sir  George  Tufto  ;  but  that  circumstance  did 
not — as  is  sometimes  the  case — enable  him  to  in- 
terpret by  sympathy  the  hieroglyphics  of  other 
people.  Is  there  any  one  left,  "  In  a  Lancashire 
Garden "  or  elsewhere,  who  recalls  the  honoured 
name  of  Jane  Loudon,  authoress  of  "The  Lady's 
Companion  to  her  Flower  Garden  "  ?  Mrs.  Loudon 
was  an  accomplished  lady,  who  wrote  not  only  on 
Floriculture,  but  on  Arboriculture  and  Landscape 
Gardening,  and  illustrated  what  she  wrote.  In 
one  of  her  works  she  desired  to  insert  a  sketch 
of  the  "Waterloo  Beeches"  at  Strathfieldsaye — 
a  picturesque  clump  planted  to  commemorate  our 
deliverance   from  the   Corsican   Tyrant.     Accord- 


HANDWRITING  251 

ingly  she  wrote  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  re- 
questing leave  to  sketch  the  beeches,  and  signed 
herself,  in  her  usual  form,  "J.  Loudon."  The 
Duke,  who,  in  spite  of  extreme  age  and  percep- 
tions not  quite  so  clear  as  they  had  once  been, 
insisted  on  conducting  all  his  own  correspond- 
ence, replied  as  follows  : — 

"  F.M.  the  Duke  of  Wellington  presents  his 
compliments  to  the  Bishop  of  London.  The 
Bishop  is  quite  at  liberty  to  make  a  sketch  of 
the  breeches  which  the  Duke  wore  at  Waterloo, 
if  they  can  be  found.  But  the  Duke  is  not 
aware  that  they  differed  in  any  way  from  the 
breeches  which  he  generally  wears." 


XXXIV 

AUTOGRAPHS 

From  handwriting  in  general  to  autographs  in  par- 
ticular the  transition  is  natural,  almost  inevitable. 
My  recent  reflections  on  the  imperfect  penmanship 
of  the  British  officer  sent  me  to  my  collection  of 
letters,  and  the  sight  of  these  autographs  —  old 
friends  long  since  hidden  away — set  me  on  an 
interesting  enquiry.  Was  there  any  affinity  be- 
tween the  writing  and  the  character  ?  Could  one, 
in  any  case,  have  guessed  who  the  writer  was,  or 
what  he  did,  merely  by  scrutinizing  his  manu- 
script ?  I  make  no  pretension  to  any  skill  in  the 
art  or  science  of  Caligraphy  ;  and,  regarding  my 
letters  merely  as  an  amateur  or  non-expert,  I 
must  confess  that  I  arrive  at  a  mixed  and  dubious 
result.  Some  of  the  autographs  are  characteristic 
enough  ;  some  seem  to  imply  qualities  for  which 
the  writer  was  not  famed  and  to  suppress  others 
for  which  he  was  notorious. 

Let  us  look  carefully  at  the  first  letter  which  I 
produce  from  my  hoard.  The  lines  are  level,  and 
the  words  are  clearly  divided,  although  here  and 

there  an    abbreviation  tells  that  the   hand    which 

252 


AUTOGRAPHS  253 

wrote  this  letter  had  many  letters  to  write ;  the 
capitals,  of  which  there  are  plenty,  are  long  and 
twirling,  though  the  intermediate  letters  are  rather 
small,  and  the  signature  is  followed  by  an  emphatic 
dash  which  seems  to  say  more  explicitly  than 
words  that  the  writer  is  one  who  cannot  be  ignored. 
This  is  the  autograph  of  Queen  Victoria  in  those 
distant  days  when  she  said,  "They  seem  to  think 
that  I  am  a  schoolgirl,  but  I  will  teach  them  that  I 
am  Queen  of  England." 

Surrounding  and  succeeding  Queen  Victoria  I 
find  a  cluster  of  minor  royalties,  but  a  study  of 
their  autographs  does  not  enable  me  to  gener- 
alize about  royal  writing.  Some  are  scrawling  and 
some  are  cramped  ;  some  are  infantine  and  some 
foreign.  Here  is  a  level,  firm,  and  rapid  hand, 
in  which  the  exigencies  of  a  copious  correspond- 
ence seem  to  have  softened  the  stiffness  of  a  mili- 
tary gait.  The  letter  is  dated  from  "The  Horse 
Guards,"  and  the  signature  is 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

George." 

But  here  again  we  cannot  generalize,  for  nothing 
can  be  more  dissimilar  than  the  Duke's  hurried, 
high-shouldered  characters  and  the  exquisite  piece 
of  penmanship  which  lies  alongside  of  them.  This 
is  written  in  a  leisurely  and  cultivated  hand, 
with  due  spaces  between  words  and  paragraphs, 
like  the  writing  of  a  scholar  and  man  of  letters ; 


254  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

it   is    dated    May    29,    1888,  and  bears  the   signa- 
ture  of 

"Your  affectionate  Cousin, 

Albemarle," 

the  last  survivor  but  one  of  Waterloo. 

But  soldiers  are  not  much  in  my  way,  and  my 
military  signatures  are  few.  My  collection  is  rich 
in  politicians.  Here  comes,  first  in  date  though 
in  nothing  else,  that  Duke  of  Bedford  who  negoti- 
ated the  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau  and  got  trounced 
by  Junius  for  his  pains.  It  is  written  in  1767,  just 
as  the  writer  is  "setting  out  from  Woburn  Abbey 
to  consult  his  Shropshire  oculist"  (why  Shrop- 
shire ?),  and  has  the  small,  cramped  character 
which  is  common  to  so  many  conditions  of 
shortened  sight.  (I  find  exactly  the  same  in  a 
letter  of  Lord  Chancellor  Hatherley,  1881.)  Thirty- 
nine  years  pass,  and  William  Pitt  writes  his  last 
letter  from  "  Putney  Hill,  the  1st  of  January,  1806, 
2  p.m.,"  the  writing  as  clear,  as  steady,  and  as 
beautifully  formed  as  if  the  "  Sun  of  Austerlitz " 
had  never  dawned.  And  now  the  Statesmen 
pass  me  in  rapid  succession  and  in  fine  disregard 
of  chronological  order.  Lord  Russell  writes  a 
graceful,  fluent,  rather  feminine  hand ;  Charles 
Villiers's  writing  is  of  the  same  family ;  and  the 
great  Lord  Derby's  a  perfect  specimen  of  the 
"  Italian  hand,"  delicate  as  if  drawn  with  a  crow- 
quill,  and  slanted  into  alluring  tails  and  loops. 
Lord  Brougham's  was  a  vile  scrawl,  with  half  the 


AUTOGRAPHS  255 

letters  tumbling  backwards.  John  Bright's  is  small, 
neat,  and  absolutely  clear  ;  nor  is  it  fanciful  to 
surmise  that  Mr.  Chamberlain  copied  Mr.  Bright, 
and  were  they  not  both  short-sighted  men  ?  And 
Lord  Goschen's  writing,  from  the  same  cause,  is 
smaller  still.  The  Duke  of  Argyll  wrote  a  startling 
and  imperious  hand,  worthy  of  a  Highland  chief 
whose  ancestors  not  so  long  ago  exercised  the 
power  of  life  and  death  ;  Lord  Iddesleigh  a  neat 
and  orderly  hand,  becoming  a  Private  Secretary 
or  Permanent  Official.  Lord  Granville's  and  Mr. 
Forster's  writings  had  this  in  common,  that  they 
looked  most  surprisingly  candid  and  straightfor- 
ward. The  present  Duke  of  Devonshire's  writing 
suggests  nothing  but  vanity,  self-consciousness, 
and  ostentation.  We  all  can  judge,  even  without 
being  caligraphists,  how  far  these  suggestions 
conform  to  the  facts.  By  far  the  most  pleasing 
autograph  of  all  the  Statesmen  is  Lord  Beacons- 
field's,  artistically  formed  and  highly  finished — 
in  his  own  phrase,  "  that  form  of  scripture  which 
attracts."  With  the  utmost  possible  loyalty  to  a 
lost  leader,  I  would  submit  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
wrote  an  uncommonly  bad  hand — not  bad  in 
point  of  appearance,  for  it  was  neat  and  comely 
even  when  it  was  hurried  ;  but  bad  morally — a 
kind  of  caligraphic  imposture,  for  it  looks  quite 
remarkably  legible,  and  it  is  only  when  you 
come  to  close  quarters  with  it  and  try  to  de- 
cipher an  important  passage  that  you  find  that 
all  the  letters  are  practically  the  same,  and  that 


256  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

the  interpretation  of  a  word  must  depend  on  the 
context. 

From  my  pile  of  Statesmen's  autographs  I  extract 
yet  another,  and  I  lay  it  side  by  side  with  the 
autographs  of  a  great  author  and  a  great  ecclesi- 
astic. All  three  are  very  small,  exquisitely  neat, 
very  little  slanted,  absolutely  legible.  Well  as  I 
knew  the  three  writers,  I  doubt  if  I  could  tell  which 
wrote  which  letter.  They  were  Cardinal  Manning, 
Mr.  Froude,  and  Lord  Rosebery.  Will  the  experts 
in  caligraphy  tell  me  if,  in  this  case,  similarity  of 
writing  bodied  forth  similarity  of  gifts  or  qualities  ? 
Another  very  close  similarity  may  be  observed 
between  the  writing  of  Lord  Halsbury  and  that 
of  Lord  Brampton  (better  known  as  Sir  Henry 
Hawkins),  which,  but  for  the  fact  that  Lord 
Brampton  uses  the  long  "  s "  and  Lord  Halsbury 
does  not,  are  pretty  nearly  identical. 

If  there  is  one  truth  which  can  be  deduced  more 
confidently  than  another  from  my  collection  of 
autographs,  it  is  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  "the 
literary  hand."  Every  variety  of  writing  which  a 
"Reader's"  fevered  brain  could  conceive  is  illus- 
trated in  my  bundle  of  literary  autographs.  Seniores 
priores.  Samuel  Rogers  was  born  in  1763,  and 
died  in  1855.  A  note  of  his,  written  in  1849,  and 
beginning,  "  Pray,  pray,  come  on  Tuesday,"  is  by 
far  the  most  surprising  piece  of  caligraphy  in  my 
collection.  It  is  so  small  that,  except  under  the 
eyes  of  early  youth,  it  requires  a  magnifying-glass  ; 
yet  the  symmetry  of  every  letter  is  perfect,  and, 


AUTOGRAPHS  257 

when  sufficiently  enlarged,  it  might  stand  as  a 
model  of  beautiful  and  readable  writing.  I  take 
a  bound  of  sixty  years,  and  find  some  of  the 
same  characteristics  reproduced  by  my  friend 
Mr.  Quiller-Couch ;  but  between  the  "  Pleasures 
of  Memory"  and  "Green  Bays"  there  rolls  a  sea 
of  literature,  and  it  has  been  navigated  by  some 
strange  crafts  in  the  way  of  handwriting.  I  have 
spoken  on  another  occasion  of  Dean  Stanley,  Lord 
Houghton,  and  James  Payn  ;  specimens  of  their 
enormities  surround  me  as  I  write,  and  I  can 
adduce,  I  think,  an  equally  heinous  instance. 
Here  is  Sydney  Smith,  writing  in  1837  to  "Dear 
John,"  the  hero  of  the  Reform  Act,  "No  body 
wishes  better  for  you  and  yours  than  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Combe  Florey."  Perhaps  so ;  but  they 
conveyed  their  benedictions  through  a  very  irritat- 
ing medium,  for  Sydney  Smith's  writing  is  of  the 
immoral  type,  pleasing  to  the  eye  and  superficially 
legible,  but,  when  once  you  have  lost  the  clue,  a 
labyrinth.  Perhaps  it  is  due  to  this  circumstance 
that  his  books  abound,  beyond  all  others,  in  un- 
corrected misprints. 

But  there  are  other  faults  in  writing  besides 
ugliness  and  illegibility.  A  great  man  ought  not 
to  write  a  poor  hand.  Yet  nothing  can  be  poorer 
than  Ruskin's — mean,  ugly,  insignificant  —  only 
redeemed  by  perfect  legibility.  Goldwin  Smith's, 
though  clear  and  shapely,  is  characterless  and 
disappointing.     Some  great   scholars,   again,  write 

disappointing  hands.     Jowett's  is  a  spiteful-looking 

R 


258  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

angular,  little  scratch,  perfectly  easy  to  read  ;  West- 
cott's  comely  but  not  clear  ;  Lightfoot's  an  open, 
scrambling  scrawl,  something  like  the  late  Lord 
Derby's.  These  great  men  cannot  excuse  their 
deficiencies  in  penmanship  by  pleading  that  they 
have  had  to  write  a  great  deal  in  their  lives. 
Others  before  them  have  had  to  do  that,  and  have 
emerged  from  the  trial  without  a  stain  on  their 
caligraphy.  For  example  —  "Albany,  December 
3,  1854,"  is  the  heading  of  an  ideally  beautiful 
sheet,  every  letter  perfectly  formed,  all  spaces  duly 
observed,  and  the  whole  evidently  maintaining  its 
beauty  in  spite  of  breakneck  speed.  The  signa- 
ture is 

"  Ever  yours  truly, 

T.  B.  Macaulay." 

Here  is  a  letter  addressed  to  me  only  last  year 
by  a  man  who  was  born  in  1816.  In  my  whole 
collection  there  is  no  clearer  or  prettier  writing. 
As  a  devotee  of  fine  penmanship,  I  make  my 
salutations  to  Sir  Theodore  Martin. 


XXXV 

MORE    AUTOGRAPHS 

My  suggestive  friend  has  suddenly  been  multiplied 
a  hundredfold.  Handwriting  is  a  subject  which 
apparently  makes  a  wide  appeal.  Each  post  brings 
me  corrections  or  corroborations  of  what  I  wrote 
last  Saturday.  Fresh  instances  of  enormity  in  the 
way  of  illegible  writing  are  adduced  from  all 
quarters ;  nor  are  there  wanting  acrid  critics  who 
suggest  that  reform  should  begin  at  home,  and 
that  "  the  Author  of  Collections  and  Recollec- 
tions "  would  do  well  to  consult  a  writing-master, 
or  to  have  his  copy  typed  before  it  goes  to  the 
printers.  Waiving  these  personalities,  I  turn  again 
to  my  letter-case,  and  here  let  me  say  in  passing 
that  I  committed  a  fearful  indiscretion  when  I 
spoke  of  my  "  Collection  "  of  autographs.  That  fatal 
word  brought  down  an  avalanche  of  "Collectors," 
who,  hailing  me  as  a  man  and  a  brother,  propose 
all  sorts  of  convenient  exchanges.  A  gentleman 
who  cherishes  a  postcard  from  Mr.  Rudyard 
Kipling  would  exchange  it  for  an  unpublished 
letter  of  Shelley  ;  and  a  maiden-lady  at  Weston- 
super-Mare,   whose  great-aunt    corresponded  with 

Eliza  Cook,  will  refuse  no  reasonable  offer. 

259 


26o  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

But  all  these  handsome  propositions  must  be 
brushed  aside,  for  I  have  no  collection  of  autographs, 
if  "collection  "implies  any  art  or  system  in  the 
way  in  which  they  have  been  brought  together, 
or  any  store  of  saleable  duplicates.  Mine  are 
simply  letters  addressed  to  myself  or  to  my  kins- 
folk, plus  just  a  very  few  which  have  come  into 
my  hands  in  connexiou  with  public  business  ;  but, 
such  as  they  are,  they  are  full  of  memories  and 
morals. 

Why  did  very  old  people  write  so  well  ?     I  have 
already  described   the  writing  of  Samuel   Rogers, 
of     the    Waterloo    Lord    Albemarle,   and    of    Sir 
Theodore   Martin.     Pretty    well    for   octogenarian 
penmanship;;  but    I    can   enlarge   the   gallery.     A 
bundle    of   octogenarian   letters  lies  before  me   as 
I  write.     Oliver   Wendell  Holmes  sends  a  tribute 
to    Matthew    Arnold.     Charles   Villiers  accepts  an 
invitation  to  dinner.     Lord  Norton  invites  me  to 
stay   at    Hams.      Archdeacon    Denison    complains 
of   "his  first   attack  of  gout  at  eighty-five."      Mr. 
Leveson-Gower    at    eighty-six    thanks    me    for    a 
review  of  his   first  book.     I    protest  that   there   is 
not    an    ungraceful    line  —  scarcely    a    misshaped 
letter — in  any  of  these  five  manuscripts.     Here  is 
a  small,  elegant,  and  "  taily  "  hand,  rather  like  an 
old-fashioned  lady's.     The  signature  is 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

EVERSLEY," 

better  known  as  Mr.  Shaw-Lefevre,  the  most  authori- 


MORE    AUTOGRAPHS  261 

tative  Speaker  the  House  of  Commons  ever  had. 
Note  that  this  was  written  in  his  eighty-eighth 
year,  and  he  lived  to  buy  a  new  pair  of  guns  after 
he  was  ninety.  Here  is  a  strong,  clear,  well-defined 
writing,  setting  forth  with  precision  and  emphasis 
the  reasons  why  the  last  Duke  of  Cleveland,  then 
in  his  eighty-fifth  year,  will  not  give  more  than  ^5 
for  an  object  which  he  has  been  asked  to  help. 
The  writing  of  the  beloved  and  honoured  Duke 
of  Rutland,  always  graceful  and  regular,  becomes 
markedly  smaller,  though  not  the  least  less  legible, 
till  he  dies  at  eighty-seven.  There  is  no  more 
vigorous,  even  dashing,  signature  in  my  store  than 
"  G.  J.  Holyoake,"  written  in  July  1905.  Close  to 
the  imperial  purple  of  the  Agitator's  ink  nestles, 
in  piquant  contrast,  a  small  half-sheet  of  rose- 
pink  paper  bearing  a  Duchess's  coronet  and  cypher. 
The  writing  is  distinct  and  ornamental  ;  the  letter 
was  written  in  1880,  and  the  writer  was  born 
in  1792.  But  the  mere  fact  of  attaining  to  eighty 
or  ninety  years  will  not  absolutely  guarantee, 
though  it  seems  to  promote,  legibility  of  writing. 
My  venerable  friend  Dean  Randall,  who  was  born 
in  1824,  ends  a  letter,  which  certainly  needs  some 
such  apology,  with  a  disarming  allusion  to  the 
"  dreadful  scrawl  "  of  his  "  ancient  MS.  "  ;  and 
four  sides  of  tantalizing  hieroglyphics,  drawn  ap- 
parently with  a  blunt  stick,  are  shown  by  external 
evidence  to  be  a  letter  from  Canon  Carter  of 
Clewer  when  he  had  touched  his  ninetieth  birth- 
day. 


262  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

On  similarity,  approaching  to  identity,  between 
the  writings  of  very  dissimilar  persons  I  have 
already  remarked,  and  a  further  illustration  comes 
to  light  as  I  turn  over  my  papers.  Here  are  two 
letters  in  the  graceful  and  legible  script  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century,  with  long  S's,  and  capitals  for 
all  the  substantives.  Both  are  evidently  the  handi- 
work of  cultivated  gentlemen  ;  and  both  the  writers, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  were  clergymen.  But  there  the 
resemblance  stops.  The  one  was  "Jack"  Russell, 
the  well-known  Sporting  Parson  of  Exmoor  ;  the 
other  was  Andrew  Jukes,  the  deepest  and  most 
influential  Mystic  whom  the  latter-day  Church  has 
seen. 

When  I  praise  gracefulness  in  writing  I  mean 
natural  and  effortless  grace,  such  as  was  displayed 
in  the  writing  of  the  late  Duke  of  Westminster. 
But,  if  we  admire  writing  artificially  fashioned  and 
coerced  into  gracefulness  like  a  clipped  yew,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  excel  the  penmanship  of  the 
late  George  Augustus  Sala,  who  was  an  engraver 
before  he  was  an  author ;  or  that  of  Sir  A.  Conan 
Doyle,  who  handles  a  pen  as  dexterously  as  in  his 
surgical  days  he  wielded  the  lancet.  I  praised  just 
now  the  late  Duke  of  Westminster's  writing,  and 
of  him  one  might  say  what  Scott  said,  in  a  differ- 
ent sense,  of  Byron — that  he  "  managed  his  pen 
with  the  careless  and  negligent  ease  of  a  man  of 
quality  "  ;  but  there  is  another  kind  of  grace  than 
that — the  grace  which  is  partly  the  result  of  mental 
clearness  and  partly  of  a  cultured  eye.     Here  are 


MORE    AUTOGRAPHS  263 

two  specimens  of  such  writing,  the  letters  so  allur- 
ingly fashioned  that  they  look,  as  some  one  said, 
like  something  good  to  eat ;  and  spaced  with  a  care 
which  at  once  makes  reading  easy,  and  testifies  to 
clear  thinking  in  the  writer.  Both  are  the  writings 
of  Scholars,  and  both  of  men  who  wrote  a  vast 
deal  in  their  lives — Bishop  Creighton  and  Dean 
Vaughan.  It  must  have  been  a  joy  to  read  their 
Proofs.  The  late  Dean  Farrar  was  the  only  Public- 
School  Master  I  ever  knew  who  took  pains  with 
his  pupils'  writing  and  encouraged  them  to  add 
grace  to  legibility.  His  own  writing,  small,  up- 
right, and  characterful,  was  very  pretty  when  he 
took  time  and  pains  ;  but  the  specimen  which  lies 
before  me  shows  sad  signs  of  the  havoc  wrought 
by  incessant  writing  against  time. 

Grace  and  legibility  are  the  two  chief  glories  of 
penmanship,  but  other  attributes  are  not  without 
their  effect.  A  dashing  scrawl,  if  only  it  is  easy 
to  read,  suggests  a  soaring  superiority  to  conven- 
tional restraints,  and  rather  bespeaks  a  hero.  Here 
are  two  scrawls,  and  each  is  the  work  of  a  re- 
markable person.  One  is  signed  "  Yours  truly, 
Jos.  Cowen,"  and  I  dare  say  that  some  of  my 
readers  would  see  in  it  the  index  to  a  nature  at 
once  impetuous  and  imperious.  But  Mr.  Cowen's 
scrawl  was  crowquill-work  and  copperplate  com- 
pared with  its  next-door  neighbour.  "Accept  the 
enclosed,  dear  Mr.  Russell,"  covers  the  whole  of 
one  side  of  a  sheet  of  letter-paper ;  the  ink  is 
blue;    the    paper    is    ribbed;    the    signature,    all 


264  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

wreathed  in  gigantic  flourishes  and  curling  tails, 
is  "  Laura  Thistlethwaite,"  and  the  enclosed  is 
one  of  the  Evangelistic  Addresses  of  that  gifted 
preacher  who  once  was  Laura  Bell.  Odd  incon- 
gruities keep  turning  up.  As  I  pass  from  the 
Evangelical  lady-orator,  I  come  to  Father  Ignatius, 
an  Evangelical  orator  with  a  difference,  but  with 
a  like  tendency  to  scrawl.  Lord  Leighton's  writing 
is  also  a  scrawl,  and,  it  must  be  confessed,  an 
egotistical  scrawl,  and  a  very  bad  scrawl  to  read. 
An  illegible  scrawl,  too,  is  the  writing  of  Richard 
Holt  Hutton,  but  his  is  not  a  vainglorious  or  com- 
manding scrawl,  but  rather  humble  and  untidy. 
"  Henry  Irving"  is  a  signature  quite  culpably 
illegible,  but  "Squire  Bancroft"  is  just  irregular 
enough  to  be  interesting  though  not  unreadable. 

Per  contra,  I  turn  to  one  of  the  most  legible 
signatures  in  my  possession.  The  writing  is  ugly 
and  the  letters  are  ill-formed,  looking  rather  like 
the  work  of  a  hand  which  has  only  lately  learned 
to  write  and  finds  the  act  a  difficulty.  But  it  is 
as  clear  as  print,  and  it  shows  no  adventitious 
ornamentation  or  self-assertive  twirls.  The  sig- 
nature is 

"Yours  most  sincerely, 

Randolph  S.  Churchill." 

In  this  case,  if  in  no  other,  the  oracles  of  Caligraphy 
are  set  at  naught.  Here  is  a  fine,  twisty,  twirling 
hand,  all  tails  and  loops,  but  not  at  all  unsightly. 
The  signature   reads    like  "  Lincoln,"   and  only  a 


MORE    AUTOGRAPHS  265 

careful  study  would  detect  that  the  "  L"  of  "Lin- 
coln "  is  preceded  by  a  circular  flourish  which  looks 
like  part  of  the  L  but  is  really  a  capital  C.  It  is 
the  signature  of  that  great  scholar,  Christopher 
Wordsworth,  Bishop  of  Lincoln  ;  and  I  remember 
that,  in  days  of  ecclesiastical  strife,  it  was  once 
imputed  to  that  apostolic  man  for  vanity  that  he 
signed  his  name  "  Lincoln  "  like  a  Temporal  Peer. 
From  that  day  he  defined  the  "  C "  more  care- 
fully. 

To  the  last  letter  which  I  bring  to  light  to-day 
a  different  kind  of  interest  attaches.     It  is  dated 

"  Dingle  Bank,  Liverpool, 
April  13,   1888." 

The  writing  is  small  and  clear,  with  the  upstrokes 
and  downstrokes  rather  long  in  comparison  with 
the  level  letters  ;  but  some  small  blurs  and  blots 
show  that  the  letter  was  written  in  unusual  haste. 
It  ends  with  these  words  :  "  Smalley  has  written  a 
letter  full  of  shriekings  and  cursings  about  my  inno- 
cent article  ;  the  Americans  will  get  their  notion 
of  it  from  that,  and  I  shall  never  be  able  to  enter 
America  again. 

"  Ever  yours, 

M.  A." 
This  was   the   last   letter   which    Matthew  Arnold 
ever  wrote,  and  it  closed  a  friendship  which  had 
been  one  of  the  joys  and  glories  of  my  life. 


XXXVI 

CHRISTMAS 

"  Christmas,  now,"  as  Mr.  Brooke  in  "  Middle- 
march  "  might  have  said — "  I  went  a  good  deal 
into  that  kind  of  thing  at  one  time  ;  but  I  found 
it  would  carry  me  too  far — over  the  hedge,  in 
fact."  That,  I  imagine,  pretty  well  represents 
the  attitude  of  the  adult  world  towards  the  feast 
which  closes  the  year.  We  all  loved  it  when  we 
were  young.  Now,  it  is  all  very  well  for  once  in 
a  way ;  it  might  pall  if  frequently  repeated  ;  even 
recurring  only  annually,  it  must  be  observed  tem- 
perately and  enjoyed  moderately.  Anything  re- 
sembling excess  would  carry  one  too  far — "  over 
the  hedge,  in  fact."  But,  within  these  recognized 
and  salutary  limits,  Christmas  is  an  institution 
which  I  would  not  willingly  let  die.  In  the  days 
of  my  youth  a  Jewish  lady  caused  me  not  a  little 
consternation  by  remarking  that  it  seemed  very 
odd  for  Christians  to  celebrate  the  Feast  of  Redemp- 
tion with  gluttony  and  drunkenness.  She  lived, 
I  am  bound  to  say,  in  a  very  unregenerate  village 
in  a  remarkably  savage  part  of  the  country,  and 
as,  of  course,  she  did  not  go  to  church,  I  dare  say 

that  Gluttony  and  Drunkenness  were  the  forms  of 

266 


CHRISTMAS  267 

Christmas  observance  which  most  obtruded  them- 
selves on  her  notice.  Even  Cardinal  Newman 
seems  to  have  remarked  the  same  phenomenon  in 
his  youth,  though  he  satirized  it  more  delicately. 
"  Beneficed  clergymen  used  to  go  to  rest  as  usual 
on  Christmas-eve,  and  leave  to  ringers,  or  some- 
times to  carollers,  the  observance  which  was  paid, 
not  without  creature  comforts,  to  the  sacred  night." 
Now  all  that  is  changed.  Churches  of  all  con- 
fessions vie  with  one  another  in  the  frequency 
and  heartiness  and  picturesque  equipment  of 
their  religious  services.  Even  the  Daily  Telegraph 
preaches  Christmas  sermons  ;  and  I  very  much 
question  whether  the  populace  gets  more  drunk 
at  Christmas  than  at  Easter.  But,  though  we 
may  have  learnt  to  celebrate  the  festival  with  rites 
more  devout  and  less  bibulous,  we  have  not  yet 
escaped  my  Jewish  friend's  reproach  of  gluttony. 
The  Christmas  Dinner  of  the  British  Home  is 
still  a  thing  imagination  boggles  at.  The  dreadful 
pleasantries  of  the  aged — their  sorry  gibes  about 
the  doctor  and  the  draught ;  hoary  chestnuts  about 
little  boys  who  stood  up  to  eat  more — remain 
among  the  most  terrible  memories  of  the  Christmas 
dinner.  And  they  were  quite  in  keeping  with  the 
dinner  itself.  I  say  nothing  against  the  Turkey, 
which  (as  my  medical  friends  well  know)  was 
found,  by  practical  experiment  in  the  case  of 
Alexis  St.  Martin,  to  be  the  most  easily  digested 
of  all  animal  foods,  except  venison  ;  but  surely,  as  a 
nation,  we  eat  quite  beef  enough  in  the  course  of 


268  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

the  year  without  making  Christmas  an  annual  orgy 
of  carnivorous  excess.  I  protest  that  the  very 
sight  of  the  butchers'  shops  at  this  season  of  the 
year  is  enough  to  upset  a  delicately  balanced 
organization.  Rightly  said  the  Shah,  in  that 
immortal  Diary  which  he  kept  during  his  visit  to 
England  in  1873 — "  Meat  is  good,  but  it  should 
not  be  hung  up  in  windows."  Macaulay  used  to 
say  that  Thackeray,  in  his  famous  description  of 
the  Clapham  sect  in  "  The  Newcomes,"  made 
one  blunder — he  represented  them  as  Dissenters, 
whereas,  in  fact,  they  were  rather  dogged  Church- 
people.  The  only  exception  to  the  rule  was  a 
Baptist  lady,  who,  living  on  Clapham  Common, 
testified  against  the  superstitions  of  the  Established 
Church  by  eating  roast  veal  and  apple-pie  on 
Christmas-day  instead  of  more  orthodox  dainties. 
Churchman  though  I  am,  I  protest  that  I  think 
the  Baptist  lady  was  right  :  and  I  believe  that  the 
Puritans  were  wiser  than  they  knew  when  they 
denounced  Plum-Pudding  and  Mince  Pies  as  in- 
ventions of  the  Evil  One.  Yet  the  love  of  these 
vindictive  viands  is  one  of  the  root-instincts  of  our 
English  nature.  Forty-eight  years  ago  the  British 
Army  was  keeping  its  Christmas  in  the  Crimea, 
amid  all  the  horrors  and  hardships  of  a  peculiarly 
grim  campaign.  An  English  Sister  of  Mercy,  who 
was  nursing  under  Miss  Nightingale  in  the  Hospital 
at  Scutari,  thus  described  the  melancholy  festivity  : 
"The  'Roast  Beef  of  Old  England'  was  out  of 
the  question,  but  with   the  aid  of  a  good  deal  of 


CHRISTMAS  269 

imagination,  it  seemed  possible  at  least  to  secure 
the  Plum  Pudding.  I  think  I  might  with  safety 
affirm  that  as  the  doctor  left  the  ward  every  man 
drew  from  under  his  pillow  a  small  portion  of 
flour  and  fat,  with  an  egg  and  some  plums,  and 
began  to  concoct  a  Christmas  pudding.  I  assisted 
many  to  make  the  pudding,  whom  nothing  short 
of  a  miracle  would  enable  to  eat  it ;  still  they  must 
have  the  thing.  For  some  days  previously  I  had 
been  asked  for  pieces  of  linen,  which,  without 
dreaming  of  the  use  to  which  they  were  to  be 
applied,  I  supplied.  Thus  were  the  pudding  cloths 
provided." 

It  can  scarcely  be  conceived  that  these  unhappy 
soldiers,  maddened  by  wounds  and  fever  or  perish- 
ing by  frost-bite  and  gangrene,  can  have  had  much 
physical  enjoyment  in  Christmas  puddings  made 
of  materials  which  had  been  concealed  under  their 
sick  pillows  ;  in  such  circumstances  the  value  of  the 
pudding  is  spiritual  and  symbolic.  A  few  Christ- 
mases  ago  I  was  assisting  (in  the  literal  sense)  at  a 
dinner  for  starving  "  Dockers."  A  more  broken, 
jaded,  and  dejected  crew  it  would  be  difficult  to 
picture.  They  had  scarcely  enough  energy  to  eat 
and  drink,  but  lumbered  slowly  through  their  meal 
of  meat-pies  and  coffee  without  a  smile  and  almost 
without  a  word.  All  at  once  an  unrehearsed  feature 
was  introduced  into  the  rather  cheerless  programme, 
and  a  huge  Plum  Pudding,  wreathed  with  holly 
and  flaming  blue  with  burnt  brandy,  was  borne 
into  the  hall.     A  deep  gasp  of  joy  burst  from  the 


270  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

assembled  guests,  and  the  whole  company  rose 
as  one  man  and  greeted  the  joyous  vision 
with  "Auld  Lang  Syne."  The  eating  was  yet  to 
come,  so  the  exhilaration  was  purely  moral. 
The  Pudding  spoke  at  once  to  Memory  and  to 
Hope. 

There  are  other  adjuncts  of  Christmas  which 
must  by  no  means  be  overlooked  —  Christmas 
presents,  for  instance,  and  Christmas  amusements. 
As  to  Christmas  presents,  I  regard  them  as  definite 
means  of  grace.  For  weeks — sometimes  months — 
before  Christmas  returns  we  concentrate  our 
thought  on  our  friends  instead  of  ourselves.  We 
reflect  on  people's  likes  and  dislikes,  habits,  tastes, 
and  occupations.  We  tax  our  ingenuity  to  find  gifts 
suitable  for  the  recipients,  and  buy  objects  which 
we  think  frankly  hideous  in  the  hope  of  gratifying 
our  unsophisticated  friends.  Happily  the  age  of 
ormolu  and  malachite  has  passed.  We  no  longer 
buy  blotting-books  made  unusable  by  little  knobs 
of  enamel  on  the  cover ;  nor  gilt-paper  weights 
which  cost  a  hundred  times  more  than  the  over- 
weighted letters  of  a  lifetime  could  amount  to. 
Christmas  gifts  of  this  type  belong  to  an  unre- 
turning  past,  and,  as  Walter  Pater  said  of  the 
wedding-present  which  he  was  expected  to  admire, 
"  Very  rich,  very  handsome,  very  expensive,  I'm 
sure — but  they  mustn't  make  any  more  of  them." 
Nor  will  they.  The  standard  of  popular  taste  in 
the  matter  of  nick-nacks  has  improved  as  con- 
spicuously as  in  that  of  furniture  ;  and  the  fancy 


CHRISTMAS  271 

shops,  when  spread  for  the  Christmas  market, 
display  a  really  large  choice  of  presents  which 
one  can  buy  without  sacrificing  self-respect,  and 
give  without  the  appearance  of  insult. 

But  Christmas  presents,  even  at  a  moderate 
rate  of  charge,  may,  if  one  has  a  large  circle  of 
acquaintance,  carry  one  over  the  hedge,  as  Mr. 
Brooke  said  ;  and  here  is  the  scope  and  function 
of  the  Christmas  Card.  Few  people  have  bought 
more  Christmas  cards  in  a  lifetime  than  the 
present  writer ;  and,  out  of  a  vast  experience,  he 
would  offer  one  word  of  friendly  counsel  to  the 
card-sender.  Do  not  accumulate  the  cards  which 
you  receive  this  Christmas  and  distribute  them 
among  your  friends  next  Christmas,  for,  if  you 
do,  as  sure  as  fate  you  will  one  day  return  a 
card  to  the  sender ;  and  old  friendships  and 
profitable  connexions  have  been  severed  by  such 
miscarriages. 

Of  Christmas  amusements  I  can  say  little.  My 
notion  of  them  is  chiefly  derived  from  "  Happy 
Thoughts,"  where  Byng  suggests  some  a  Christ- 
massy sort  of  thing"  to  amuse  his  guests,  and 
fails  to  gratify  even  his  Half-Aunt.  My  infancy 
was  spent  in  the  country,  remote  from  Dances 
and  Theatres,  Pantomimes  and  Panoramas.  "The 
Classic  Walls  of  Old  Drury  "  never  welcomed  me 
on  Boxing  Night.  Certainly  a  Christmas  Tree 
and  a  stocking  full  of  presents  appealed  to  that 
acquisitive  instinct  which  is  fully  as  strong  in 
infancy   as   in   old   age ;    but,   though   exceedingly 


272  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

young  in  my  time,  I  never  was  young  enough  to 
be  amused  by  a  Snow-Man  or  dangerously  excited 
by  Blind  Man's  Buff.  Looking  back,  like  Tenny- 
son's "  many-wintered  crow,"  on  these  Christ- 
mases  of  infancy,  I  have  sometimes  asked  myself 
whether  I  lost  much  by  my  aloofness  from  the 
normal  merriment  of  youth.  Mr.  Anstey  Guthrie 
knows  the  secret  heart  of  English  boyhood  more 
accurately  than  most  of  us,  and  when  I  read  his 
description  of  a  Christmas  party  I  am  inclined 
to  be  thankful  that  my  lot  was  cast  a  good  many 
miles  beyond  the  cab-radius. 

"  Why  couldn't  you  come  to  our  party  on 
Twelfth-night  ?  We  had  great  larks.  I  wish  you'd 
been  there." 

"  I  had  to  go  to  young  Skidmore's  instead," 
said  a  pale,  spiteful-looking  boy  with  fair  hair, 
carefully  parted  in  the  middle.  "  It  was  like  his 
cheek  to  ask  me,  but  I  thought  I'd  go,  you  know, 
just  to  see  what  it  was  like." 

"What  was  it  like?"  asked  one  or  two  near 
him,  languidly. 

"  Oh,  awfully  slow  !  They've  a  poky  little 
house  in  Brompton  somewhere,  and  there  was 
no  dancing,  only  boshy  games  and  a  conjuror, 
without  any  presents.  And,  oh  !  I  say,  at  supper 
there  was  a  big  cake  on  the  table,  and  no  one 
was  allowed  to  cut  it,  because  it  was  hired. 
They're  so  poor,  you  know.  Skidmore's  pater  is 
only  a  clerk,  and  you  should  see  his  sisters  ! " 

All   my   sympathies   are  with  Skidmore,   and    I 


CHRISTMAS  273 

think  that  the  fair-haired  boy  was  an  unmitigated 
beast,  and  cad,  and  snob.  But  there  is  an  awful 
verisimilitude  about  "  Boshy  Games  and  a  Con- 
juror," and  I  bless  the  fate  which  allowed  me  to 
grow  up  in  ignorance  of  Christmas  Parties. 


XXXVII 

NEW   YEAR'S    DAY 

On  the  ist  of  January  1882,  Matthew  Arnold 
wrote  to  his  sister  :  "  I  think  the  beginning  of  a 
New  Year  very  animating — it  is  so  visible  an 
occasion  for  breaking  off  bad  habits  and  carrying 
into  effect  good  resolutions."  This  was  splendid 
in  a  man  who  had  just  entered  his  sixtieth  year, 
and  we  all  should  like  to  share  the  sentiment ; 
but  it  is  not  always  easy  to  feel  "  animated," 
even  by  the  most  significant  anniversaries.  Some- 
times they  only  depress ;  and  the  effect  which 
they  produce  depends  so  very  largely  on  the 
physical  condition  in  which  they  find  us.  Sup- 
pose, for  instance,  that  one  is  a  fox-hunter,  in 
the  prime  of  life  and  the  pride  of  health,  with 
a  good  string  of  horses  which  have  been  eating 
their  heads  off  during  a  prolonged  frost.  As 
one  wakes  on  New  Year's  morning,  one  hears 
a  delicious  dripping  from  the  roof,  and  one's 
servant,  coming  in  with  tea  and  letters,  announces 
a  rapid  thaw.  Then  "  the  beginning  of  a  New 
Year"    is    "animating"    enough;    and,    while   we 

wash  and  shave,  we  pledge  ourselves,  like  Matthew 

274 


NEW    YEAR'S    DAY  275 

Arnold,  to  "break  off  bad  habits  and  carry  into 
effect  good  resolutions."  We  remember  with 
shame  that  we  missed  three  capital  days'  hunting 
last  November  because  we  let  our  friends  seduce 
us  to  their  shooting-parties  ;  and  we  resolve  this 
year  to  make  up  for  lost  time,  to  redeem  wasted 
opportunities,  and  not  willingly  to  lose  a  day 
between  this  and  Christmas.  Such  resolutions 
are  truly  "animating";  but  we  cannot  all  be 
young  or  healthy  or  fox-hunters,  and  then  the 
anniversary  takes  a  different  colour.  Perhaps 
one  is  cowering  over  one's  study-fire,  with  "  an 
air  of  romance  struggling  through  the  common- 
place effect  of  a  swelled  face"  (like  Miss  Huckle- 
buckle  in  "  The  Owlet "),  or  mumbling  the  minced 
remains  of  our  Christmas  turkey  as  painfully  as 
Father  Diggory  in  "  Ivanhoe,"  who  was  "  so 
severely  afflicted  by  toothache  that  he  could  only 
eat  on  one  side  of  his  face."  Not  for  us,  in 
such  circumstances,  are  u  animating "  visions  of 
wide  pastures,  and  negotiable  fences,  and  too- 
fresh  hunters  pulling  one's  arms  off,  and  the 
chime  of  the  "  dappled  darlings  down  the  roaring 
blast."  Rather  does  our  New  Year's  fancy  lightly 
turn  to  thoughts  of  dentistry  and  doctoring.  We 
ask  ourselves  whether  the  time  has  not  come 
when  art  must  replace  what  nature  has  withdrawn  ; 
and,  if  we  form  a  resolution,  it  is  nothing  more 
heroic  than  that  we  will  henceforward  wear 
goloshes  in  clamp  weather  and  a  quilted  over- 
coat in  frost. 


276  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

But,  it  may  be  urged,  Matthew  Arnold  was 
not  a  fox-hunter  (at  least  not  after  his  Oxford 
days),  and  yet  he  contrived  to  feel  "animated" 
by  New  Year's  Day.  In  his  case  animation  was 
connected  with  books. 

"  I  am  glad,"  he  wrote,  "to  find  that  in  the  past 
year  I  have  at  least  accomplished  more  than  usual 
in  the  way  of  reading  the  books  which  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year  I  put  down  to  be  read.  I 
always  do  this,  and  I  do  not  expect  to  read  all 
I  put  down,  but  sometimes  I  fall  much  too  short 
of  what  I  proposed,  and  this  year  things  have 
been  a  good  deal  better.  The  importance  of 
reading,  not  slight  stuff  to  get  through  the  time 
but  the  best  that  has  been  written,  forces  itself 
upon  me  more  and  more  every  year  I  live.  It 
is  living  in  good  company,  the  best  company, 
and  people  are  generally  quite  keen  enough,  or 
too  keen,  about  doing  that  ;  yet  they  will  not 
do  it  in  the  simplest  and  most  innocent  manner 
by  reading.  If  I  live  to  be  eighty,  I  shall  pro- 
bably be  the  only  person  left  in  England  who 
reads  anything  but  newspapers  and  scientific  pub- 
lications." 

We  have  not  quite  come  to  that  yet,  but  we  are 
not  far  off  it,  and  I  should  fear  that  the  number 
of  even  educated  people  who  occupy  New  Year's 
Day  in  laying  down  a  course  of  serious  study  for 
the  next  twelve  months  is  lamentably  small. \.  But 
Hunting  and  Health  and  Books  are  not  the  only 
topics  for  New   Year's  meditation.     There  is  also 


NEW    YEAR'S    DAY  277 

Money,  which  not  seldom  obtrudes  itself  with  a 
disagreeable  urgency.  We  cast  our  eye  over  that 
little  parchment-bound  volume  which  only  "  For- 
tune's favoured  sons,  not  we  "  can  regard  with  any 
complacency ;  and  we  observe,  not  for  the  first 
time,  that  we  have  been  spending  a  good  deal  more 
than  we  ought  to  spend,  and  are  not  far  from  the 
perilous  edge  of  an  overdrawn  account.  This  is 
" animating"  indeed,  but  only  as  a  sudden  stab 
of  neuralgia  is  animating ;  and  we  immediately 
begin  to  consider  methods  of  relief.  But  where 
are  our  retrenchments  to  begin  ?  That  is  always 
the  difficulty.  I  remember  that  after  the  Cattle 
Plague  of  1865,  by  which  he  had  been  a  principal 
sufferer,  the  first  Lord  Tollemache  was  very  full 
of  fiscal  reforms.  "  I  ought  to  get  rid  of  half  my 
servants ;  but  they  are  excellent  people,  and  it 
would  be  very  wrong  to  cause  them  inconvenience. 
Horses,  too — I  really  have  no  right  to  keep  a  stud. 
But  nothing  would  ever  induce  me  to  sell  a  horse, 
and  it  seems  rather  heartless  to  kill  old  friends. 
Then,  again,  about  houses — I  ought  to  leave  St. 
James's  Square,  and  take  a  house  in  Brompton. 
But  the  Brompton  houses  are  so  small  that  they 
really  would  not  accommodate  my  family,  and  it 
would  not  be  right  to  turn  the  boys  into  lodgings." 
And  so  on  and  so  forth,  with  a  magnificent  list  of 
contemplated  reforms,  which  went  unfulfilled  till 
things  had  righted  themselves  and  retrenchment 
was  no  longer  necessary.  In  the  same  spirit,  though 
on  a  very  different  scale,  the  inhabitants  of  Stuc- 


278  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

covia  contemplate  the  financial  future  which  lies 
ahead  of  New  Year's  Day.     We  must  economize — 
that  is  plain  enough.     But  how  are  we  to  begin  ? 
I  must  have  a  new  frock-coat  very  soon,  and  shall 
want  at  least  three  tweed  suits  before  the  autumn. 
Economy   bids    me    desert    Savile    Row    and   try 
Aaronson  in  New  Oxford  Street.    "  Budge,"  says  the 
Fiend.    "  Budge  not,"  replies  Self-Respect.    Aaron- 
son  is  remarkable  for  a  fit  "that  never  was  on  sea 
or  land,"  and,  though  his  garments  are  undeniably 
cheap,  they  are  also  nasty,  and  are  worn  out  before 
they   are   paid   for.      Or   perhaps   our   conscience 
pricks  us  most   severely   in   the    matter   of   wine. 
We  will  buy  no  more  Pommery  and  Greno  at  98s. 
a  dozen,   but  will   slake  our  modest  thirst  with  a 
dry  Sillery  at  31s.     But,  after  all,  health  is  the  first 
consideration  in  life,  and,  unfortunately,  these  cheap 
wines  never  agree  with  us.     The  doctor  holds  them 
directly  responsible  for  our  last  attack  of  eczema 
or  neuritis,  and    says   impressively,   "  Drink  good 
wine,  or  none  at  all — bad  wine  is  poison  to  you." 
Drink  none  at  all.     That  is  very  "animating,"  but 
somehow   our    enfeebled    will    is    unequal   to    the 
required    resolve  ;    we  hold  spirit-drinking  in  de- 
testation ;    and   so,    after   all,   we  are   driven   back 
to  our  Pommery.     "Surely,"  as  Lamb  said,  "there 
must    be    some    other    world    in    which    our    un- 
conquerable  purpose"   of   retrenchment   shall    be 
realized. 

Travel,   again.     Many   people   spend   too   much 
in  travel.     Can  we  curtail  in  that  direction  ?     For 


NEW    YEAR'S    DAY  279 

my  own  part,  I  am  a  Londoner,  and  am  content 
with  life  as  it  is  afforded  by  this  wonderful  world 
miscalled  a  city.  But  the  Family  has  claims.  Some 
of  them  suffer  from  "  Liver,"  and  whoso  knows 
what  it  is  to  dwell  with  liverish  patients  will 
not  lightly  run  the  risk  of  keeping  them  from 
Carlsbad.  Others  can  only  breathe  on  high  Alps, 
and  others,  again,  require  the  sunshine  of  the 
Riviera  or  the  warmth  of  the  Italian  Lakes.  So 
all  the  ways  of  retrenchment  seem  barred.  Clothes 
and  wine  and  travel  must  cost  as  much  as  they 
cost  last  year,  and  the  only  way  of  escape  seems 
to  lie  in  the  steps  of  the  Prince  Consort,  who, 
when  Parliament  reduced  his  income  from  the 
proposed  fifty  thousand  a  year  to  thirty,  patiently 
observed  that  he  should  have  to  give  less  in 
subscriptions. 

To  the  Spendthrift,  or  even  to  the  more  modest 
practitioner  who  merely  lives  up  to  his  income, 
the  New  Year,  as  we  have  seen,  offers  few  oppor- 
tunities for  resolutions  of  reform ;  but  I  fancy 
that  the  Skinflint,  and  his  cousin  the  Screw,  find 
it  full  of  suggestive  possibilities.  I  remember  a 
gentleman  of  "griping  and  penurious  tendencies" 
(the  phrase  is  Mr.  Gladstone's)  telling  me  when 
I  was  a  schoolboy  that  he  had  resolved  to  spend 
nothing  with  his  tailor  in  the  year  then  dawning. 
He  announced  it  with  the  air  befitting  a  great 
self-surrender,  but  I  thought,  as  I  looked  at  his 
clothes,  that  he  was  really  only  continuing  the 
well-established  practice  of  a  lifetime.    The  Screw, 


280  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

of  course,  is  of  no  one  place  or  age ;  and  here 
is  an  excellent  citation  from  the  Diary  of  a 
Screw — Mr.  Thomas  Turner — who  flourished  in 
Sussex  in  the  eighteenth  century:  "This  being 
New  Year's  Day,  myself  and  wife  at  church  in 
the  morning.  Collection.  My  wife  gave  6d.  But, 
they  not  asking  me,  I  gave  nothing.  Oh  !  may 
we  increase  in  faith  and  good  works,  and  main- 
tain the  good  intentions  we  have  this  day  taken 
up."  Those  who  have  tried  it  say  that  hoarding 
is  the  purest  of  human  pleasures  ;  and  I  dare  say 
that  by  the  end  of  the  year  good  Mr.  Turner's 
banking-book  was  a  phantom  of  delight. 

All  these  reflections,  and  others  like  unto  them, 
came  whirling  on  my  mind  this  New  Year's 
Eve ;  and,  just  as  I  was  beginning  to  reduce 
them  to  form  and  figure,  the  shrill  ting-ting  of 
the  church-bell  pierced  the  silence  of  the  night. 
Watch-Night.  Those  who  are  not  the  friends  of 
the  English  Church  denounce  her  as  hidebound, 
immovable,  and  unreceptive.  Here  is  the — or 
an — answer  to  the  charge.  She  has  borrowed, 
originally,  from  the  Swedenborgians  and  more 
immediately  from  the  Wesleyans,  a  religious  ob- 
servance which,  though  unrecognized  in  Prayer- 
book  or  Kalendar,  now  divides  with  the  Harvest 
Festival  the  honour  of  being  the  most  popular 
service  in  the  Church  of  England. 

"Among  the  promptings  of  what  may  be 
called,  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  term,  Natural 
Religion,    none    surely    is    more    instructive    than 


NEW    YEAR'S    DAY  281 

that  which  leads  men  to  observe  with  peculiar 
solemnity  the  entrance  upon  a  new  year  of  life. 
It  is,  if  nothing  else,  the  making  a  step  in  the 
dark.  It  is  the  entrance  upon  a  new  epoch  in 
existence,  of  which  the  manifold  "  changes  and 
chances  "  prevent  our  forecasting  the  issue.  True, 
the  line  of  demarcation  is  purely  arbitrary ;  yet 
there  are  few,  even  of  the  most  thoughtless,  who 
can  set  foot  across  the  line  which  separates  one 
year  from  another  without  feeling  in  some  de- 
gree the  significance  of  the  act.  It  would  seem 
that  this  passing  season  of  thoughtfulness  was 
one  of  those  opportunities  which  no  form  of 
religion  could  afford  to  miss.  And  yet,  for  a 
long  time,  that  which  may  perhaps  without 
offence  be  termed  Ecclesiasticism  sternly  refused 
to  recognize  this  occasion.  The  line  was  rigidly 
drawn  between  the  Civil  New  Year  and  the 
Church's  New  Year.  We  were  told  that  Advent 
was  the  beginning  of  our  Sacred  Year,  and  that 
the  evening  before  the  First  Sunday  in  Advent 
was  the  time  for  those  serious  thoughts  and 
good  resolutions  which  rightly  accompany  a  New 
Year." 

Yes — so  we  were  taught ;  and  there  was  a  great 
deal  to  be  said,  ecclesiastically,  for  the  teaching. 
Only,  unfortunately,  no  one  believed  it.  We 
went  to  bed  quite  unmoved  on  Saturday  even- 
ing, December  1,  1906.  No  era  seemed  to  have 
closed  for  us,  no  era  to  have  opened  :  there  was 
nothing     to     remember,     nothing    to    anticipate  ; 


282  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

nothing  to  repent  and  nothing  to  resolve.  It  is 
otherwise  to-night.1  The  "  church-going  bell " 
does  not  tingle  in  vain.  Old  men  and  maidens, 
young  men  and  children  are  crowding  in.  I 
involve  myself  in  an  ulster  and  a  comforter,  and 
join  the  pilgrim-throng. 

1  December  31,  1906. 


XXXVIII 

PETS 

My  suggestive  friend  has  taken  to  postcards,  and 
his  style,  never  diffuse,  has  become  as  curt  as 
that  of  Mr.  Alfred  Jingle.  "  Why  not  Pets  ? "  he 
writes  ;  and  the  suggestion  gives  pause. 

When  Mrs.  Topham-Sawyer  accepted  the  invita- 
tion to  the  Little  Dinner  atTimmins's,  she  concluded 
her  letter  to  Rosa  Timmins  :  "  With  a  hundred  kisses 
to  your  dear  little  pet."  She  said  pet,  we  are  told, 
"  because  she  did  not  know  whether  Rosa's  child 
was  a  girl  or  a  boy ;  and  Mrs.  Timmins  was  very 
much  pleased  with  the  kind  and  gracious  nature  of 
the  reply  to  her  invitation."  My  mind  misgave  me 
that  my  friend  might  be  using  the  word  pet  in  the 
same  sense  as  Mrs.  Topham-Sawyer,  and  inviting 
me  to  a  discussion  of  the  Creche  or  the  Nursery. 
As  my  views  of  childhood  are  formed  on  those  of 
Herod  and  Solomon,  I  hastened  to  decline  so  un- 
suitable a  task,  whereupon  my  friend,  for  all  reply, 
sent  me  the  following  excerpt  from  an  evening 
paper  : — 

"The  Westminster  Cat  Exhibition,  which  will  be 
held   in    the    Royal    Horticultural    Society's    Hall, 

Vincent  Square,  Westminster,  on  January  10  and 

283 


284  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

ii,  will  afford  an  opportunity  to  all  who  love  the 
domestic  cat  to  aid  in  improving  its  lot  through  the 
agency  of  Our  Dumb  Friends'  League,  which  it  is 
desired  to  benefit,  not  only  by  their  presence  on  the 
occasion,  but  by  contributing  suitable  specimens  to 
the  '  Gift  Class,'  which  will  form  part  of  the  show, 
and  be  offered  for  sale  in  aid  of  the  League  during 
the  time  the  exhibition  is  open.  Children  will  be 
invited,  for  the  first  time,  to  enter  into  the  competi- 
tion with  their  pets  for  suitable  prizes,  and  thus,  it 
is  hoped,  increase  their  interest  in  and  affection  for 
domestic  pets." 

Here  I  felt  myself  on  more  familiar  ground. 
For  I,  too,  have  been  young.  I  have  trafficked  in 
squirrels  and  guinea-pigs,  have  invested  my  all  in 
an  Angora  rabbit,  and  have  undergone  discipline 
for  bringing  a  dormouse  into  school.  These  are, 
indeed,  among  the  childish  things  which  I  put  away 
when  I  became  a  Fifth  Form  boy ;  but  their 
memory  is  sweet — sweeter,  indeed,  than  was  their 
actual  presence.  For  the  Cat,  with  which  my  friend 
seems  chiefly  to  concern  himself,  I  have  never  felt, 
or  even  professed,  any  warm  regard.  I  leave  her 
to  Dick  Whittington  and  Shakespeare,  who  did  so 
much  to  popularize  her ;  to  Gray  and  Matthew 
Arnold  and  "C.  S.  C,"  who  have  drawn  her  more 
sinister  traits.  Gray  remarks,  with  reference  to  "  the 
pensive  Selima "  and  her  hopeless  struggles  in  the 
tub  of  goldfish,  that  "  a  favourite  has  no  friend." 
Archbishop  Benson  rendered  the  line 

"  Delicias  dominse  cetera  turba  fugit." 


PETS  285 

I    join  the   unfriendly   throng,  and  pass  to   other 
themes. 

The  pet-keeping  instinct,  strong  in  infancy  but 
suppressed  by  the  iron  traditions  of  the  Public 
School,  not  seldom  reasserts  itself  in  the  freedom 
of  later  life.  "The  Pets  of  History"  would  be  a 
worthy  theme  for  a  Romanes  Lecture  at  Oxford; 
and,  if  the  purview  were  expanded  so  as  to  include 
the  Pets  of  Literature,  it  would  be  a  fit  subject  for 
the  brilliant  pen  of  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison.  We 
might  conveniently  adopt  a  Wordsworthian  classi- 
fication, such  as  "  Pets  belonging  to  the  period 
of  Childhood,"  "Juvenile  Pets,"  "Pets  and  the 
Affections,"  "  Pets  of  the  Fancy,"  and  "  Pets  of  the 
Imagination."  In  the  last-named  class  a  promi- 
nent place  would  be  assigned  to  Heavenly  Una's 
milk-white  lamb  and  to  Mary's  snowy-fleeced  fol- 
lower. "  Pets  of  the  Fancy "  has,  I  must  confess, 
something  of  a  pugilistic  sound,  but  it  might  fairly 
be  held  to  include  the  tame  eagle  which  Louis 
Napoleon,  when  resident  in  Carlton  Gardens,  used 
to  practise  in  the  basement  for  the  part  which 
it  was  to  play  in  his  descent  on  Boulogne. 
Under  "  Pets  and  the  Affections  "  we  should  recall 
Chaucer's  '-  Prioresse  " — 

"  Of  smale  houndes  hadde  sche,  that  sche  fedde 
With  rostud  fleissh,  and  mylk,  and  wastel  bredde." 

The  Pets  of  Tradition  would  begin  with  St. 
John's  tame  partridge,  and  would  include  an  ac- 
count of  St.  Francis  preaching  to  the  birds.     The 


286  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Pets  of  History  would  no  doubt  involve  some 
reference  to  the  Bruce's  spider  and  Sir  Isaac 
Newton's  Diamond  and  the  Due  D'Enghien's 
spaniel ;  and,  if  so  belittling  a  title  as  "  pet  "  may 
be  applied  to  so  majestic  an  animal  as  the  horse, 
we  should  trace  a  long  line  of  equine  celebrities 
from  Bucephalus  and  Sorrel  to  Marengo  and 
Copenhagen.  The  Pets  of  Literature  are,  of 
course,  a  boundless  host — chargers  like  White 
Surrey,  and  coursers  like  Roland ;  hounds  like 
Keeldar  and  falcons  like  Cheviot — to  say  nothing 
of  Mrs.  Merdle's  parrot,  or  Miss  Tox's  canary,  or 
Mr.  Kipling's  appalling  monkey,  who  murdered  his 
owner's  wife. 

Wordsworth  alone  is  responsible  for  a  whole 
menagerie  of  pets — for  a  White  Doe,  for  a  grey- 
hound called  Dart,  for  "  Prince,"  "  Swallow,"  and 
"Little  Music,"  let  alone  the  anonymous  dog 
who  was  lost  with  his  master  on  Helvellyn.  The 
gentle  Cowper  had  his  disgusting  hares  and  his 
murderous  spaniel  Beau.  Byron's  only  friend  was 
a  Newfoundland  dog  called  Boatswain.  The  horses 
of  fiction  are  a  splendid  stud.  Ruksh  leads  the 
procession  in  poetry,  and  Rosinante  in  prose.  A 
true  lover  of  Scott  can  enumerate  twenty  differ- 
ent horses,  of  strongly  marked  individuality  and 
appropriate  names.  Whoso  knows  not  Widderin 
and  his  gallop  from  the  bushrangers  has  yet  to 
read  one  of  the  most  thrilling  scenes  in  fiction  ; 
and  I  think  that  to  this  imaginary  stud  may  be 
fairly  added  the  Arabian  mare  which  Lord  Beacons- 


PETS  287 

field  thought  he  had  ridden  for  thirty  miles  across 
country  in  the  strongly-enclosed  neighbourhood 
of  Southend. 

Among  the  Pets  of  Real  Life  an  honourable 
place  belongs  to  Sir  Walter  Scott's  deerhounds — 
were  not  their  names  Bran  and  Maida  ? — and  to 
Lord  Shaftesbury's  donkey  Coster.  Loved  in  life 
and  honoured  in  death  were  Matthew  Arnold's 
dachshunds  Geist  and  Max,  his  retriever  Rover,  his 
cat  Atossa,  and,  above  all,  his  canary  Matthias, 
commemorated  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of 
elegiac  poems.  With  Bismarck — not,  one  would 
have  thought,  a  natural  lover  of  pets — is  histori- 
cally associated  a  Boarhound,  or  "  Great  Dane." 
Lord  Beaconsfield  characteristically  loved  a  pea- 
cock. The  evening  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  days  was 
cheered  by  the  companionship  of  a  small  black 
Pomeranian.  Sir  Henry  Hawkins  was  not  better 
known  to  the  criminal  classes  than  his  fox-terrier 
Jack;  and  all  who  passed  Lady  Burdett-Coutts's 
house  saw  hanging  in  the  dining-room  window  a 
china  cockatoo — the  image  or  simulacrum  of  a 
departed  bird  which  lived  to  a  prodigious  age  and 
used  to  ask  the  most  inconvenient  questions. 

The  greatest  patroness  of  Pets  in  Real  Life  was 
Queen  Victoria,  and  her  books  have  secured  for 
these  favourites  a  permanent  place.  Noble,  the 
collie,  will  be  remembered  as  long  as  "  Leaves 
from  the  Journal  of  our  Life  in  the  Highlands" 
is  read ;  and  I  can  myself  recall  the  excitement 
which  fluttered  the  highest  circles  when  a  black 


288  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

terrier,  called,  I  think,  Sharp,  killed  a  rat  which 
had  climbed  up  the  ivy  into  the  window  of  the 
Queen's  sitting-room  at  Windsor. 

There  are  certain  pets,  or  families  of  pets,  which 
stand  on  their  own  traditional  dignity  rather  than 
on  associations  with  individuals.  All  Cheshire 
knows  the  Mastiffs  of  Lyme,  tall  as  donkeys  and 
peaceable  as  sheep.  The  Clumber  Spaniels  and 
the  Gordon  Setters  are  at  least  as  famous  as  the 
dukes  who  own  them.  Perhaps  the  most  fasci- 
nating pet  in  the  canine  world  is  associated  with 
the  great  victory  of  Blenheim  ;  and  the  Willoughby 
Pug  preserves  from  oblivion  a  name  which  has 
been  merged  in  the  Earldom  of  Ancaster. 

In  the  days  of  my  youth  one  was  constantly 
hearing — and  especially  in  the  Whiggish  circles 
where  I  was  reared — two  names  which  may  easily 
puzzle  posterior  critics.  These  were  "Bear  Ellis" 
and  "  Poodle  Byng."  They  were  pre-eminently 
unsentimental  persons.  "Bear"  Ellis  (1781-1863) 
was  so  called  because  he  was  Chairman  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and  "Poodle"  Byng 
(1784-1871)  because  his  hair,  while  yet  he  boasted 
such  an  appendage,  had  been  crisply  curled.  But 
the  Dryasdust  of  the  future,  pondering  over  the 
social  and  political  records  of  Queen  Victoria's 
earlier  reign,  will  undoubtedly  connect  these  pre- 
fixes with  pet-keeping  tendencies,  and  will  praise 
the  humane  influence  of  an  animal-loving  Court 
which  induced  hardened  men  of  the  world  to  join 
the  ranks  of  "Our  Dumb  Friends'  League." 


XXXIX 

PURPLE    AND    FINE    LINEN 

Dean  versus  Bishop — it  is  an  antinomy  as  old  as 
the  history  of  Cathedral  institutions.  The  Dean, 
with  a  good  house  and  a  thousand  a  year,  has 
always  murmured  against  the  Bishop,  with  a 
better  house  and  five  times  that  income ;  and, 
as  he  is  generally  master  of  his  Cathedral,  he 
has  before  now  contrived  to  make  his  murmurs 
sensible  as  well  as  audible.  Of  late  years  these 
spiritual  strifes  (which  beautifully  link  the  post- 
Reformation  to  the  pre-Reformation  Church)  have 
been  voted  disedifying,  and,  if  they  continue  to 
exist,  they  operate  surreptitiously  and  out  of  public 
view.  But,  though  Deans  have  ceased  from  cla- 
mouring, they  retain  their  right  to  criticize,  and 
the  Dean  of  Norwich  has  just  been  exercising  that 
right  with  a  good  deal  of  vivacity.  I  cull  the 
following  extract  from  a  secular  newspaper  : — 

Simple  Life  for  Bishops 

"  Dean  Lefroy  at  a  meeting  of  the  General 
Diocesan  Committee  to  make  arrangements  for 
the    Church     Congress    at     Great    Yarmouth    in 


290  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

October  .  .  .  commented  on  the  inordinate  ex- 
pense of  founding  bishoprics,  and  said  that 
episcopacy  in  Canterbury  Province  cost  .£142,000 
per  annum,  and  in  York  .£44,000.  He  believed 
that  ^2000  a  year  and  a  residence  would  be 
welcome  to  most  bishops.  The  upkeep  of  large 
palaces  swallowed  up  the  bishops'  incomes. 
Preserve  the  palaces,  but  give  bishops  the  oppor- 
tunity of  living  more  simply.  The  surplus  might 
go  to  poor  and  starving  clergy." 

One   can   picture   the  tempered    gratitude   with 
which    the    Bishops,   and  the  ladies  of  the    Epis- 
copal  household,  and   the    Domestic  Chaplains — 
those     "  amiable     young     gentlemen     who    make 
themselves    agreeable    in    the    drawing-rooms    of 
the  Mitre  " — must   regard   this  obliging  invitation 
to    "  live    more    simply."     There   is   a   good   deal 
of  human   nature  even  in  apostolic  bosoms,  and 
a   man    who   has   enjoyed  an    official    income   of 
^5000   a   year   does   not    as    a    rule    regard   with 
enthusiasm    a   reduction   to    .£2000.     The   Bishop 
in     "  Little    Dorrit,"    when     the    guests    at     Mr. 
Merdle's    banquet     were     extolling     their     host's 
opulence,   "tried    to    look    as    if    he    was    rather 
poor  himself"  ;  and  his  successors  at  the  present 
day    take   great   pains   to   assure    the   public  that 
they    are    not    overpaid.     The    locus    classicus    on 
the   subject  of  episcopal  incomes  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Rev.   Hubert   Handley's  book  called  "The 
Fatal   Opulence   of  Bishops,"   and   was  originally 
supplied    by   the   artless   candour   of   the    present 


PURPLE    AND    FINE    LINEN         291 

Bishop  of  London,  who  in  the  year  1893  pub- 
lished in  the  Oxford  House  Chronicle  a  statistical 
statement  by  an  unnamed  Bishop.  This  prelate 
had  only  a  beggarly  income  of  .£4200,  and  must 
therefore  be  the  occupant  of  one  of  those  com- 
paratively cheap  and  humble  Sees  which  the 
exigencies  of  the  Church  have  lately  called  into 
being.  Out  of  this  pittance  he  had  to  pay  ^1950 
for  a  removal,  furniture,  and  repairs  to  the 
episcopal  residence.  This,  to  the  lay  mind,  seems 
a  good  deal.  Hospitality  he  sets  down  as  cost- 
ing ^2000  a  year  ;  but  somehow  one  feels  as  if 
one  could  give  luncheon  to  the  country  clergy, 
and  satisfy  even  the  craving  appetites  of  ordinands, 
at  a  less  cost.  "  Stables,"  says  the  good  Bishop, 
"  are  almost  a  necessity,  and  in  some  respects 
a  saving ; "  but  here  the  haughty  disregard  of 
details  makes  criticism  difficult.  "Robes,  .£100." 
This  item  is  plain  enough  and  absurd  enough. 
The  perverted  ingenuity  of  fallen  man  has  never 
devised  a  costume  more  hideous  or  less  ex- 
pressive than  the  episcopal  "  magpie " ;  and  I 
am  confident  that  Mrs.  Bishop's  maid  could 
have  stitched  together  the  necessary  amounts  of 
lawn  and  black  satin  at  a  less  cost  than  _£ioo. 
But  this  exactly  illustrates  the  plan  on  which 
these  episcopal  incomes  are  always  defended  by 
their  apologists.  We  are  told  precisely  what  the 
Bishop  expends  on  each  item  of  charge.  But 
we  are  not  told,  and  are  quite  unable  to  divine, 
why   each    of   those   items  should   cost  so   much, 


292  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

or  why  some  of  them  should  ever  be  incurred. 
The  Bishop  of  London  (then  Mr.  Winnington- 
Ingram)  thus  summed  up  the  statement  of  his 
episcopal  friend  in  the  background  :  "  It  amounts 
to  this — a  bishop's  income  is  a  trust-fund  for  the 
diocese  which  head  ministers.  It  would  make  no 
difference  to  him  personally  if  three-quarters  of 
it  were  taken  away,  so  long  as  three-quarters 
of  his  liabilities  were  taken  away  too ;  and  it 
is  quite  arguable  that  this  would  be  a  better 
arrangement." 

Certainly  it  is  "quite  arguable"  ;  but  is  it  equally 
certain  that  the  change  "  would  make  no  difference 
to  the  Bishop  personally  "  ?  I  doubt  it.  Married 
men,  men  with  large  families  and  plenty  of 
servants,  naturally  prefer  large  houses  to  small, 
provided  that  there  is  an  income  to  maintain 
them.  Men  who  enjoy  the  comforts  and  pretti- 
nesses  of  life  prefer  an  income  which  enables 
them  to  repair  and  furnish  and  beautify  their 
houses  to  an  income  which  involves  faded  wall- 
paper and  battered  paint.  Men  of  hospitable 
instincts  are  happier  in  a  system  which  enables 
them  to  spend  .£2000  a  year  on  entertaining 
than  they  would  be  if  they  were  compelled  to 
think  twice  of  the  butcher's  bill  and  thrice  of  the 
wine-merchant's.  Men  who  like  horses — and  few 
Englishmen  do  not — naturally  incline  to  regard 
"stables  as  a  necessity,"  and  even  as  "in  some 
respects" — what  respects? — "a  saving."  If  their 
income  were  reduced  to  the  figure  suggested  by 


PURPLE    AND    FINE    LINEN         293 

Dean  Lefroy,  they  would  find  themselves  under 
the  bitter  constraint  (as  Milton  calls  it)  of  doing 
without  a  "necessity,"  and  must  even  forgo  an 
outlay  which  is  "  in  some  respects  a  saving." 

Again,  the  anonymous  Bishop  returned  his  out- 
lay in  subscriptions  at  a  fraction  over  ^400  a 
year.  I  do  not  presume  to  say  whether  this  is 
much  or  little  out  of  an  income  of  ^4000.  At 
any  rate  it  is  a  Tithe,  and  that  is  a  respectable 
proportion.  But,  supposing  that  our  Bishop  is  a 
man  of  generous  disposition,  who  loves  to  re- 
lieve distress 'and  feels  impelled  to  give  a  lift 
to  every  good  cause  which  asks  his  aid,  he  is  of 
necessity  a  happier  man  while  he  draws  ^4000  a 
year  than  he  would  be  if  cut  down  by  reforming 
Deans  to  -£2000. 

I  venture,  then,  with  immense  deference  to 
that  admirable  divine  who  is  now  Bishop  of 
London,  to  dissent  emphatically  from  his  judg- 
ment, recorded  in  1895,  that  the  diminution  of  epis- 
copal incomes,  if  accompanied  by  a  corresponding 
diminution  of  episcopal  charges,  would  "make 
no  difference  to  the  Bishop  personally."  I 
conceive  that  it  would  make  a  great  deal  of 
difference,  and  that,  though  spiritually  salutary, 
it  would  be,  as  regards  temporal  concerns,  one 
of  those  experiments  which  one  would  rather 
try  on  one's  neighbour  than  on  oneself. 

An  ingenious  clergyman  who  shared  Dean 
Lefroy's  and  Mr.  Handley's  views  on  episcopal  in- 
comes, and  had  an  inconvenient  love  of  statistics, 


294  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

made  a  study  at  the  Probate  Office  of  the  person- 
alty left  by  English  Bishops  who  died  between 
1855  and  1885.  The  average  was  .£54,000,  and  the 
total  personalty  something  more  than  two  millions 
sterling.  "This  was  exclusive  of  any  real  estate 
they  may  have  possessed,  and  exclusive  of  any 
sums  invested  in  policies  of  life-assurance  or 
otherwise  settled  for  the  benefit  of  their  families." 
Myself  no  lover  of  statistics  or  of  the  extra- 
ordinarily ill-ventilated  Will-room  at  Somerset 
House,  I  am  unable  to  say  how  far  the  episcopal 
accumulations  of  the  last  twenty  years  may  have 
affected  the  total  and  the  average.  It  is  only 
fair  to  remember  that  several  of  the  Bishops 
who  died  between  1855  and  1885  dated  from  the 
happy  days  before  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission 
curtailed  episcopal  incomes,  and  may  have  had 
ten,  or  fifteen,  or  twenty  thousand  a  year.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that, 
since  Sir  William  Harcourt's  Budget,  the  habit 
of  "  dodging  the  death-duties "  has  enormously 
increased,  and  has  made  it  difficult  to  know  what 
a  testator,  episcopal  or  other,  really  possessed. 
But  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  doubt  that,  if  the 
public  were  permitted  to  examine  all  the  episcopal 
pass-books,  we  should  find  that,  in  spite  of  the 
exactions  of  upholsterers  and  furniture-removers, 
butchers  and  bakers,  robe-makers  and  horse- 
dealers,  the  pecuniary  lot  of  an  English  Bishop 
is,  to  borrow  a  phrase  of  Miss  Edgeworth's, 
"vastly  put-up-able  with." 


PURPLE    AND    FINE    LINEN         295 

Just  after  Mr.  Bright  had  been  admitted  to  the 
Cabinet,  and  when  the  more  timid  and  more 
plausible  members  of  his  party  hoped  that  he 
would  begin  to  curb  his  adventurous  tongue, 
he  attended  a  banquet  of  the  Fishmongers'  Com- 
pany at  which  the  Archbishops  and  Bishops 
were  entertained.  The  Archbishop  of  York  (Dr. 
Thomson)  said  in  an  after-dinner  speech  that  the 
Bishops  were  the  most  liberal  element  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  seeing  that  they  were  the  only 
peers  created  for  life.  This  statement  Mr.  Bright, 
speaking  later  in  the  evening,  characterized  as 
an  excess  of  hilarity  ;  "  though,"  he  added,  "  it 
is  possible  that,  with  a  Bishop's  income,  I  might 
have  been  as  merry  as  any  of  them,  with  an 
inexhaustible  source  of  rejoicing  in  the  generosity, 
if  not  in  the  credulity,  of  my  countrymen."  To 
this  outrageous  sally  the  assembled  prelates  could, 
of  course,  only  reply  by  looking  as  dignified  (and 
as  poor)  as  they  could  ;  and  no  doubt  the  general 
opinion  of  the  Episcopal  Bench  is  that  they  are 
an  overworked  and  ill-remunerated  set  of  men. 

Yet  there  have  been  Apostles,  and  successors 
of  the  Apostles,  who  worked  quite  as  hard  and 
were  paid  considerably  less,  and  yet  succeeded  in 
winning  and  retaining  the  affectionate  reverence 
of  their  own  and  of  succeeding  generations. 
Bishop  Wilson  of  Sodor  and  Man  lived,  we  are 
told,  on  an  income  which  "  did  not  exceed  ^300 
a  year."  By  far  the  most  dignified  ecclesiastic 
with    whom  I    was    ever    brought    in    contact — a 


296  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

true  "  Prince  of  the  Church "  if  ever  there  was 
one — was  Cardinal  Manning,  and  his  official  income 
was  bounded  by  a  figure  which  even  the  reform- 
ing spirit  of  Dean  Lefroy  would  reject  as  miser- 
ably insufficient.  "  It  is  pleasant,"  wrote  Sydney 
Smith,  "to  loll  and  roll  and  accumulate — to  be 
a  purple-and-fine-linen  man,  and  to  be  called  by 
some  of  those  nicknames  which  frail  and  ephe- 
meral beings  are  so  fond  of  heaping  upon  each 
other, — but  the  best  thing  of  all  is  to  live  like 
honest  men,  and  to  add  something  to  the  cause 
of  liberality,  justice,  and  truth."  It  is  no  longer 
easy  for  a  Bishop  to  "  loll  and  roll " — the  bicycle 
and  the  motor-car  are  enemies  to  tranquil  ease — 
and,  if  Dean  Lefroy's  precept  and  Bishop  Gore's 
example  are  heeded,  he  will  find  it  equally  difficult 
to  "accumulate." 


XL 

PRELACY    AND    PALACES 

That  delicious  prelate  whom  I  have  already 
quoted,  but  whose  name  and  See  are  unkindly 
withheld  from  us  by  the  Bishop  of  London,  thus 
justified  his  expenditure  on  hospitality  :  "Palace, 
I  am  told,  is  from  Palatium,  '  the  open  house,'  and 
there  is  almost  daily  entertainment  of  clergy  and 
laity  from  a  distance."  I  will  not  presume  to 
question  the  episcopal  etymology  ;  for,  whether  it 
be  sound  or  unsound,  the  practical  result  is  equally 
good.  We  have  apostolic  authority  for  holding 
that  Bishops  should  be  given  to  hospitality,  and  it 
is  satisfactory  to  know  that  the  travel-worn  clergy 
and  laity  of  the  anonymous  diocese  are  not  sent 
empty  away.  But  would  not  the  boiled  beef  and 
rice  pudding  be  equally  acceptable  and  equally 
sustaining  if  eaten  in  some  apartment  less  majestic 
than  the  banqueting-hall  of  a  Palace  ?  Would 
not  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners  be  doing  a 
good  stroke  of  business  for  the  Church  if  they 
sold  every  Episcopal  Palace  in  England  and  pro- 
vided the  evicted  Bishops  with  moderate-sized  and 
commodious  houses  ? 

These  are  questions  which  often  present  them- 

297 


298  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

selves  to  the  lay  mind,  and  the  answer  usually 
returned  to  them  involves  some  very  circuitous 
reasoning.  The  Bishops,  say  their  henchmen, 
must  have  large  incomes  because  they  have  to  live 
in  Palaces ;  and  they  must  live  in  Palaces — I 
hardly  know  why,  but  apparently  because  they 
have  large  incomes.  Such  reasoning  does  not 
always  convince  the  reformer's  mind,  though  it 
is  repeated  in  each  succeeding  generation  with 
apparent  confidence  in  its  validity.  After  all,  there 
is  nothing  very  revolutionary  in  the  suggestion 
that  Episcopal  palaces  should  be,  in  the  strictest 
sense  of  the  word,  confiscated.  Sixty-four  years 
ago  Dr.  Hook,  who  was  not  exactly  an  iconoclast, 
wrote  thus  to  his  friend  Samuel  Wilberforce  :  "  I 
really  do  not  see  how  the  Church  can  fairly  ask 
the  State  to  give  it  money  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
a  Church  education,  when  the  money  is  to  be 
supplied  by  Dissenters  and  infidels  and  all  classes 
of  the  people,  who,  according  to  the  principles  of 
the  Constitution,  have  a  right  to  control  the  ex- 
penditure. The  State  can  only,  if  consistent,  give 
an  infidel  education ;  it  cannot  employ  public 
money  to  give  a  Church  education,  because  of  the 
Dissenters ;  nor  a  Protestant  education,  because 
of  the  Papists ;  and  have  not  Jews,  Turks,  and 
infidels  as  much  a  right  as  heretics  to  demand 
that  the  education  should  not  be  Christian  ? " 
This  strikes  me  as  very  wholesome  doctrine,  and, 
though  enounced  in  1843,  necessary  for  these 
times.     And,  when  he  turns  to  ways  and  means, 


PRELACY    AND    PALACES  299 

Dr.  Hook  is  equally  explicit  :  "  If  we  are  to  edu- 
cate the  people  in  Church  principles,  the  education 
must  be  out  of  Church  funds.  We  want  not 
proud  Lords,  haughty  Spiritual  Peers,  to  be  our 
Bishops.  Offer  four  thousand  out  of  their  five 
thousand  a  year  for  the  education  of  the  people. 
Let  Farnham  Castle  and  Winchester  House  and 
Ripon  Palace  be  sold,  and  we  shall  have  funds 
to  establish  other  Bishoprics.  .  .  .  You  see  I  am 
almost  a  Radical,  for  I  do  not  see  why  our 
Bishops  should  not  become  as  poor  as  Ambrose 
or  Augustine,  that  they  may  make  the  people 
really  rich."  It  is  not  surprising  that  Samuel 
Wilberforce,  who  had  already  climbed  up  several 
rungs  of  the  ladder  of  promotion,  and  as  he  him- 
self tells  us,  "  had  often  talked "  of  further  eleva- 
tion, met  Dr.  Hook's  suggestions  with  solemn 
repudiation.  "  I  do  think  that  we  want  Spiritual 
Peers."  "  I  see  no  reason  why  the  Bishops'  Palaces 
should  be  sold,  which  would  not  apply  equally 
to  the  halls  of  our  squires  and  the  palaces  of 
our  princes."  "To  impoverish  our  Bishops  and 
sell  their  Palaces  would  only  be  the  hopeless 
career  of  revolution." 

The  real  reason  for  selling  the  Episcopal  Palaces 
is  that,  in  plain  terms,  they  are  too  big  and  too 
costly  for  their  present  uses.  They  afford  a 
plausible  excuse  for  paying  the  Bishops  more 
highly  than  they  ought  to  be  paid  ;  and  yet  the 
Bishops  turn  round  and  say  that  even  the  com- 
fortable   incomes   which   the   Ecclesiastical    Com- 


300  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

mission  has  assigned  them  are  unequal  to  the 
burden  of  maintaining  the  Palaces.  The  late 
Bishop  Thorold,  who  was  both  a  wealthy  and  a 
liberal  man,  thus  bemoaned  his  hard  fate  in 
having  to  live  at  Farnham  Castle  :  "It  will  give 
some  idea  of  what  the  furnishing  of  this  house 
from  top  to  bottom  meant  if  I  mention  that  the 
stairs,  with  the  felt  beneath,  took  just  a  mile 
and  ioo  yards  of  carpet,  with  260  brass  stair- 
rods  ;  and  that,  independently  of  the  carpet  in 
the  great  hall,  the  carpets  used  elsewhere  ab- 
sorbed 1414  yards — a  good  deal  over  three-quarters 
of  a  mile.  As  to  the  entire  amount  of  roof, 
which  in  an  old  house  requires  constant  watch- 
ing, independently  of  other  parts  of  the  building, 
it  is  found  to  be,  on  measurement,  32,000  super- 
ficial feet,  or  one  acre  and  one-fifth."  What  is 
true  of  Farnham  is  true,  mutatis  mutandis,  of 
Bishopthorpe  with  its  hundred  rooms,  and  Auck- 
land Castle  with  its  park,  and  Rose  Castle  with 
its  woodlands,  and  Lambeth  with  its  tower  and 
guard-room  and  galleries  and  gardens.  Even  the 
smaller  Palaces,  such  as  the  "  Moated  Grange " 
of  Wells,  are  not  maintained  for  nothing.  "  My 
income  goes  in  pelargoniums,"  growled  Bishop 
Stubbs,  as  he  surveyed  the  conservatories  of 
Cuddesdon.  "  It  takes  ten  chaps  to  keep  this 
place  in  order,"  ejaculated  a  younger  prelate  as 
he  skipped  across  his  tennis-ground. 

Of  course  the  root  of  the  mischief  is  that  these 
Palaces  were  built  and  enlarged  in  the  days  when 


PRELACY  AND  PALACES     301 

each  See  had  its  own  income,  and  when  the  in- 
comes of  such  Sees  as  Durham  and  Winchester 
ran  to  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  a  year.  The  poor 
Sees — and  some  were  very  poor — had  Palaces  pro- 
portioned to  their  incomes,  and  very  unpalatial 
they  were.  "  But  now,"  as  Bertie  Stanhope  said 
to  the  Bishop  of  Barchester  at  Mrs.  Proudie's 
evening  party,  "  they've  cut  them  all  down  to 
pretty  nearly  the  same  figure,"  and  such  buildings 
as  suitably  accommodated  the  princely  retinues 
of  Archbishop  Harcourt  (who  kept  one  valet  on 
purpose  to  dress  his  wigs)  and  Bishop  Sumner 
(who  never  went  from  Farnham  Castle  to  the 
Parish  Church  except  in  a  coach-and-four)  are 
"  a  world  too  wide  for  the  shrunk  shanks"  of 
their  present  occupants. 

In  the  Palace  of  Ely  there  is  a  magnificent 
gallery,  which  once  was  the  scene  of  a  memorable 
entertainment.  When  Bishop  Sparke  secured  a 
Residentiary  Canonry  of  Ely  for  his  eldest  son,  the 
event  was  so  completely  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
things  that  it  passed  without  special  notice.  But, 
when  he  planted  his  second  son  in  a  second 
Canonry,  he  was,  and  rightly,  so  elated  by  the 
achievement  that  he  entertained  the  whole  county 
of  Cambridge  at  a  ball  in  his  gallery.  But  in  those 
days  Ely  was  worth  .£11,000  a  year,  and  we  are  not 
likely  to  see  a  similar  festival.  Until  recent  years 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  had  a  suburban 
retreat  from  the  cares  of  Lambeth,  at  Addington, 
near  Croydon,  where  one  of  the  ugliest  mansions 


3o2  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

in  Christendom  stood  in  one  of  the  prettiest  parks. 
Archbishop  Temple,  who  was  a  genuine  reformer, 
determined  to  get  rid  of  this  second  Palace  and 
take  a  modest  house  near  his  Cathedral.  When 
he  asked  the  Ecclesiastical  Commissioners  to  sanc- 
tion this  arrangement,  they  demurred.  "  Do  you 
think,"  they  asked,  "that  your  successors  will  wish 
to  live  at  Canterbury  ?  "  "  No,  /  don't"  replied 
the  Archbishop,  with  indescribable  emphasis,  "and 
so  I'm  determined  they  shall!'1 

If  every  Bishop  who  is  saddled  with  an  incon- 
veniently large  house  were  in  earnest  about  get- 
ting rid  of  it,  the  Ecclesiastical  Commission  could 
soon  help  him  out  of  his  difficulty.  Palaces  of  no 
architectural  or  historical  interest  could  be  thrown 
into  the  market,  and  follow  the  fate  of  Riseholme, 
once  the  abode  of  the  Bishops  of  Lincoln.  Those 
Palaces  which  are  interesting  or  beautiful,  or  in 
any  special  sense  heirlooms  of  the  Church,  could 
be  converted  into  Diocesan  Colleges,  Training 
Colleges,  Homes  for  Invalid  Clergymen,  or  Houses 
of  Rest  for  such  as  are  overworked  and  broken 
down.  By  this  arrangement  the  Church  would 
be  no  loser,  and  the  Bishops,  according  to  their 
own  showing,  would  be  greatly  the  gainers.  ,£5000 
a  year,  or  even  a  beggarly  four,  will  go  a  long 
way  in  a  villa  at  Edgbaston  or  a  red-brick  house 
in  Kennington  Park  ;  and,  as  the  Bishops  will  no 
longer  have  Palaces  to  maintain,  they  will  no 
doubt  gladly  accept  still  further  reductions  at  the 
hands  of  reformers  like  Dean  Lefroy. 


PRELACY  AND  PALACES     303 

It  would  be  a  sad  pity  if  these  contemplated 
reductions  closed  the  Palatium  or  "  open  house " 
against  the  hungry  flock ;  but,  if  they  only  check 
the  more  mundane  proclivities  of  Prelacy,  no 
harm  will  be  done.  One  of  the  most  spendidly 
hospitable  prelates  who  ever  adorned  the  Bench 
was  Archbishop  Thomson  of  York,  and  this  is 
Bishop  Wilberforce's  comment  on  what  he  saw 
and  heard  under  the  Archiepiscopal  roof  :  "  Dinner 
at  Archbishop  of  York's.  A  good  many  Bishops, 
both  of  England  and  Ireland,  and  not  one  word 
said  which  implied  we  were  apostles."  Perhaps 
it  will  be  easier  to  keep  that  fact  in  remem- 
brance, when  to  apostolic  succession  is  added 
the  grace  of  apostolic  poverty. 


XLI 

HORRORS 

The  subject  is  suggested  to  me  by  the  notice- 
board  outside  the  Court  Theatre.  There  I  learn 
that  "  The  Campden  Wonder  "  has  run  its  course. 
A  "horror"  of  the  highest  excellence  has  been 
on  view  for  four  weeks  ;  and  I,  who  might  have 
revelled  in  it,  have  made,  per  viltate,  the  Great 
Refusal.  I  leave  the  italicized  quality  untranslated, 
because  I  am  not  quite  sure  of  the  English 
equivalent  which  would  exactly  suit  my  case. 
"Vileness"  is  a  little  crude.  "Cowardice"  is 
ignominious.  "  Poorness  of  Spirit "  is  an  Evan- 
gelical virtue.  "Deficiency  of  Enterprise"  and 
"  an  impaired  nervous  system "  would,  at  the 
best,  be  paraphrases  rather  than  translations.  On 
the  whole,  I  think  the  nearest  approximation  to 
the  facts  of  my  case  is  to  say  that  my  refusal  to 
profit  by  Mr.  Masefield's  Horror  was  due  to  De- 
cadence. Fuimus.  There  has  been  a  period  when 
such  a  tale  as  the  "Campden  Wonder"  would 
have  attracted  me  with  an  irresistible  fascination 
and  gripped  me  with  a  grasp  of  iron.  But  I  am 
not  the  man  I  was  ;  and  I  am  beginning  to  share 

the  apprehensions  of  the  aged  lady  who  told  her 

304 


HORRORS  305 

doctor  that  she   feared  she  was  breaking  up,  for 
she  could  no  longer  relish  her  Murders. 

Youth,  and  early  youth,  is  indeed  the  Golden 
Age  of  Horrors.  To  a  well-constituted  child 
battle  and  murder  and  sudden  death  appeal  far 
more  powerfully  than  any  smooth  tale  of  love. 
We  snatch  a  fearful  joy  from  the  lurid  conversa- 
tion of  servants  and  neighbours.  We  gaze,  with 
a  kind  of  panic-stricken  rapture,  at  the  stain  on 
the  floor  which  marks  the  place  where  old  Mr. 
Yellowboy  was  murdered  for  his  money ;  and 
run  very  fast,  though  with  a  backward  gaze,  past 
the  tree  on  which  young  Rantipole  hanged  him- 
self on  being  cut  off  with  a  shilling  by  his  uncle 
Mr.  Wormwood  Scrubbs.  In  some  privileged 
families  the  children  are  not  left  to  depend  on 
circumjacent  gossip,  but  are  dogmatically  in- 
structed in  hereditary  horrors.  This  happy  lot 
was  mine.  My  father's  uncle  had  been  murdered 
by  his  valet ;  and  from  a  very  tender  age  I 
could  have  pointed  out  the  house  where  the 
murder  took  place — it  went  cheap  for  a  good 
many  years  afterwards, — and  could  have  described 
the  murderer  stripping  himself  naked  before  he 
performed  the  horrid  act,  and  the  bath  of  blood 
in  which  the  victim  was  found,  and  the  devices 
employed  to  create  an  impression  of  suicide 
instead  of  murder.  I  could  have  repeated  the 
magnificent  peroration  in  which  the  murderer's 
advocate  exhorted  the  jury  to  spare  his  client's 
life    (and    which,    forty    years    later,    was    boldly 

u 


306  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

plagiarized  by  Mr.  Montagu  Williams  in  defending 
Dr.  Lamson).  The  murderer,  Benjamin  Francis 
Courvoisier  by  name,  long  occupied  a  conspicuous 
place  in  Madame  Tussaud's  admirable  collection. 
I  can  distinctly  recall  a  kind  of  social  eminence 
among  my  schoolfellows  which  was  conferred  by 
the  fact  that  I  had  this  relationship  with  the 
Chamber  of  Horrors ;  and  I  was  conscious  of  a 
painful  descent  when  Courvoisier  lapsed  out  of 
date  and  was  boiled  down  into  Mr.  Cobden  or 
Cardinal  Wiseman  or  some  other  more  recent 
celebrity.  Then,  again,  all  literature  was  full  of 
Horrors ;  and,  though  we  should  have  been 
deprived  of  jam  at  tea  if  we  had  been  caught 
reading  a  Murder  Trial  in  the  Daily  Telegraph,  we 
were  encouraged  to  drink  our  fill  of  Shakespeare 
and  Scott  and  Dickens  and  other  great  masters 
of  the  Horrible.  From  De  Quincey  we  learned 
that  Murder  may  be  regarded  as  a  Fine  Art,  and 
from  an  anonymous  poet  we  acquired  the  im- 
mortal verse  which  narrates  the  latter  end  of  Mr. 
William  Weare.  Shakespeare,  as  his  French  critics 
often  remind  us,  reeks  of  blood  and  slaughter ; 
the  word  "Murder"  and  its  derivatives  occupy 
two  columns  of  Mrs.  Cowden  Clarke's  closely- 
printed  pages.  Scott's  absolute  mastery  over  his 
art  is  nowhere  more  strikingly  exemplified  than 
in  his  use  of  murderous  mechanisms.  "  The 
Heart  of  Midlothian  "  begins,  continues,  and  ends 
with  murder.  "  Rob  Roy "  contains  a  murder- 
scene  of  lurid  beauty.     The  murderous  attack  on 


! 


HORRORS  307 

the  bridegroom  in  "The  Bride  of  Lammermoor " 
is  a  haunting  horror.  Not  all  the  Dryasdusts  in 
England  and  Germany  combined  will  ever  dis- 
place the  tradition  of  Amy  Robsart  and  the  con- 
cealed trap-door.  Front-de-Boeuf's  dying  agony 
is  to  this  hour  a  glimpse  of  hell.  Greatest  of 
the  great  in  humour,  Dickens  fell  not  far  behind 
the  greatest  when  he  turned  his  hand  to  Horrors. 
One  sheds  few  tears  for  Mr.  Tulkinghorn,  and 
we  consign  Jonas  Chuzzlewit  to  the  gallows 
without  a  pang.  But  is  there  in  fiction  a  more 
thrilling  scene  than  the  arrest  of  the  murderer 
on  the  moonlit  tower-stair  in  "  Barnaby  Rudge," 
or  the  grim  escape  of  Sikes  from  the  vengeance 
of  the  mob  in  "  Oliver  Twist "  ?  For  deliberate, 
minute,  and  elaborated  horror  commend  me  to 
the  scene  at  the  limekiln  on  the  marshes  where 
Pip  awaits  his  horrible  fate  at  the  hands  of  the 
crazy  savage  Dolge  Orlick. 

But  it  was  not  only  the  great  masters  of 
fiction  who  supplied  us  with  our  luxuries  of 
horror.  The  picture  of  the  young  man  who 
had  murdered  his  brother,  hanging  on  a  gibbet 
in  Blackgrove  Wood,  is  painted  with  a  grue- 
some fidelity  of  detail  which  places  Mrs.  Sherwood 
high  among  literary  artists ;  and  the  incidents 
connected  with  the  death  of  Old  Prue  would 
entitle  Mrs.  Beecher  Stowe  to  claim  kinship 
with  Zola. 

It  is  curious  to  reflect  that  Miss  Braddon, 
the     most     cheerful    and     wholesome-minded     of 


308  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

all  living  novelists,  first  won  her  fame  by  imagining 
the  murderous  possibilities  of  a  well,  and  estab- 
lished it  by  that  unrivalled  mystification  which 
confounds  the  murderer  and  the  murdered  in 
"  Henry  Dunbar."  Nor  will  the  younger  genera- 
tion of  authoresses  consent  to  be  left  behind 
in  the  race  of  Horrors.  In  old  days  we  were 
well  satisfied  if  we  duly  worked  up  to  our 
predestined  murder  just  before  the  end  of  the 
third  volume.  To-day  Lady  Ridley  gives  us,  in 
the  first  chapter  of  "A  Daughter  of  Jael,"  one 
of  the  most  delicate  and  suggestive  pieces  of 
murder-writing  which  I,  a  confirmed  lover  of  the 
horrible,  can  call  to  mind. 

To  a  soul  early  saturated  with  literary  horrors 
the  experience  of  life  is  a  curious  translation  of 
fancy  into  fact.  Incidents  which  have  hitherto 
appeared  visionary  and  imaginative  now  take  the 
character  of  substantial  reality.  We  discover 
that  horrors  are  not  confined  to  books  or  to  a 
picturesque  past,  but  are  going  on  all  round 
us;  and  the  discovery  is  fraught  with  an  uneasy 
joy.  When  I  recall  the  illusions  of  my  infancy 
and  the  facts  which  displaced  them,  I  feel  that 
I  fall  miserably  below  the  ideal  of  childhood 
presented  in  the  famous  "  Ode  on  the  Intimations 
of  Immortality."  My  "  daily  travel  further  from 
the  East "  is  marked  by  memories  of  dreadful 
deeds,  and  the  "vision  splendid"  which  attends 
me  on  my  way  is  a  vivid  succession  of  peculiarly 
startling  murders.     In  the  dawn  of  consciousness 


HORRORS  309 

these  visions  have  "something  of  celestial  light" 
about  them — they  are  spiritual,  impalpable,  ideal. 
At  length  the  youth  perceives  them  die  away, 
"  and  melt  into  the  light  of  common  day " — 
very  common  day  indeed,  the  day  of  the  Old 
Bailey  and  the  Police  News.  By  a  curious  chain 
of  coincidences,  I  was  early  made  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  that  unfriendly  Friend  John 
Tawell,  who  murdered  his  sweetheart  with  prussic 
acid,  and  was  the  first  criminal  to  be  arrested 
by  means  of  the  electric  telegraph.  Heroic  was 
the  defence  set  up  by  Sir  Fitzroy  Kelly,  who 
tried  to  prove  that  an  inordinate  love  of  eating 
apples,  pips  and  all,  accounted  for  the  amount 
of  prussic  acid  found  in  the  victim's  body.  Kelly 
lived  to  be  Lord  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer, 
but  the  professional  nickname  of  "  Apple-pip 
Kelly"  stuck  to  him  to  the  end.  I  know  the 
house  where  Tawell  lived  ;  I  have  sat  under  the 
apple-tree  of  which  his  victim  ate ;  and  I  have 
stood,  the  centre  of  a  roaring  election  crowd,  on 
the  exact  spot  outside  the  Court-house  at  Aylesbury 
where  he  expiated  his  crime. 

Tawell  belongs,  if  I  may  so  say,  to  a  pre-natal 
impression.  But,  as  the  'sixties  of  the  last  century 
unroll  their  record,  each  page  displays  its  peculiar 
Horror.  In  i860  Constance  Kent  cut  her  little 
brother's  throat,  and  buried  him  in  the  back-yard. 
Many  a  night  have  I  lain  quaking  in  my  bed, 
haunted  by  visions  of  sisters  armed  with  razors, 
and    hurried   graves   in    secret   spots.     Not   much 


310  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

more  cheering  was  the  nocturnal  vision  of  Thomas 
Hopley,  schoolmaster,  of  Eastbourne,  convicted 
in  i860  of  flogging  a  half-witted  pupil  to  death 
with  a  skipping-rope,  and  afterwards  covering 
the  lacerated  hands  with  white  kid  gloves.  I 
confess  to  a  lasting  distaste  for  private  schools, 
founded  on  this  reminiscence.  "The  Flowery 
Land"  is  a  title  so  prettily  fanciful,  so  suffused 
with  the  glamour  of  the  East,  that  one  would 
scarcely  expect  to  connect  it  with  piracy,  murder, 
and  a  five-fold  execution.  Yet  that  is  what  it 
meant  for  youthful  horror-mongers  in  1864.  In 
1865  the  plan  which  pleased  my  childish  thought 
was  that  pursued  by  Dr.  Pritchard  of  Glasgow, 
who,  while  he  was  slowly  poisoning  his  wife 
and  his  mother-in-law,  kept  a  diary  of  their 
sufferings  and  recorded  their  deliverance  from 
the  burden  of  the  flesh  with  pious  unction.  Two 
years  later  a  young  ruffian,  whose  crime  inspired 
Mr.  James  Rhoades  to  write  a  passionate  poem, 
cut  a  child  into  segments,  and  recorded  in  his 
journal — "Saturday,  August  24,  1867:  Killed  a 
young  girl  ,  it  was  fine  and  hot." 

One  might  linger  long  in  these  paths  of  dalliance, 
but  space  forbids ;  and  memory  clears  nine  years 
at  a  bound.  Most  vivid,  most  fascinating,  most 
human,  if  such  an  epithet  be  permitted  in  such 
a  context,  was  the  "  Balham  Mystery"  of  1876. 
Still  I  can  feel  the  cob  bolting  with  me  across 
Tooting  Common ;  still  I  lave  my  stiffness  in  a 
hot  bath,  and  tell  the   butler   that   it  will  do  for 


HORRORS  311 

a  cold  bath  to-morrow  ;  still  I  plunge  my  carving- 
knife  into  the  loin  of  lamb,  and  fill  up  the 
chinks  with  that  spinach  and  those  eggs  ;  still  I 
quench  my  thirst  with  that  Burgundy,  of  which 
no  drop  remained  in  the  decanter ;  and  still  I  wake 
up  in  the  middle  of  the  night  to  find  myself 
dying  in  torture  by  antimonial  poisoning. 

But    we    have    supped   full   on    horrors.     Good 
night,  and  pleasant  dreams. 


XLII 
SOCIAL   CHANGES 

I  have  been  invited  to  make  some  comments  on 
recent  changes  in  society,  and  I  obey  the  call, 
though  not  without  misgiving.  "  Society "  in  its 
modern  extension  is  so  wide  a  subject  that  pro- 
bably no  one  can  survey  more  than  a  limited 
portion  of  its  area ;  and,  if  one  generalizes  too 
freely  from  one's  own  experience,  one  is  likely  to 
provoke  the  contradictions  of  critics  who,  survey- 
ing other  portions,  have  been  impressed  by  differ- 
ent, and  perhaps  contrary,  phenomena.  All  such 
contradictions  I  discount  in  advance.  After  all, 
one  can  only  describe  what  one  has  seen,  and  my 
equipment  for  the  task  entrusted  to  me  consists 
of  nothing  more  than  a  habit  of  observation  and 
a  retentive  memory. 

I  was  brought  up  in  that  "sacred  circle  of  the 
Great-Grandmotherhood  "  of  which  Mr.  Beresford- 
Hope  made  such  excellent  fun  in  "  Strictly  Tied 
Up."  As  Mr.  Squeers  considered  himself  the 
"right  shop  for  morals,"  so  the  Whigs  considered 
themselves   the   right   shop    for   manners.      What 

they   said   and   did  every   one   ought  to  say   and 

312 


SOCIAL    CHANGES  313 

do,  and  from  their  judgment  there  was  no  appeal. 
A  social  education  of  this  kind  leaves  traces 
which  time  is  powerless  to  efface — "  Vieille  e'cole^ 
bonne  ecole}  begad ! "  as  Major  Pendennis  said. 
In  twenty-five  years'  contact  with  a  more  enlarged 
society,  one  has  found  a  perpetual  interest  in 
watching  the  departure,  gradual  but  nearly  uni- 
versal, from  the  social  traditions  of  one's  youth. 
The  contrast  between  Now  and  Then  is  constantly 
reasserting  itself ;  and,  if  I  note  some  instances  of 
it  just  as  they  occur  to  my  mind,  I  shall  be 
doing,  at  any  rate  in  part,  what  has  been  required 
of  me. 

I  will  take  the  most  insignificant  instances  first 
— instances  of  phrase  and  diction  and  pronuncia- 
tion. I  am  just  old  enough  to  remember  a  great- 
grandmother  who  said  that  she  {t  lay  "  at  a  place 
when  she  meant  that  she  had  slept  there,  and 
spoke  of  "  using  the  potticary  "  when  we  should 
speak  of  sending  for  the  doctor.  Some  relations 
of  a  later  generation  said  "ooman"  for  woman, 
and,  when  they  were  much  obliged,  said  they  were 
much  "  obleeged."  "  Brarcelet  "  for  bracelet  and 
"di'monds  '  for  diamonds  were  common  pro- 
nunciations. Tuesday  was  "Toosday,"  and  first 
was  "  fust."  Chariot  was  "  charr'ot,"  and  Harriet 
"  Harr'yet,"  and  I  have  even  heard  "Jeames"  for 
James.  "  Goold  "  for  gold  and  "yaller  "  for  yellow 
were  common  enough.  Stirrups  were  always 
called  "  sturrups,"  and  squirrels  u  squrrels,"  and 
wrapped  was  pronounced  "  wropped,"  and  tassels 


314  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

"tossels,"  and  Gertrude  "  Jertrude."  A  lilac  was 
always  called  a  il  laylock,"  and  a  cucumber  a 
"  cowcumber."  The  stress  was  laid  on  the  second 
syllable  of  balcony,  even  as  it  is  written  in  the 
"  Diverting  History  of  John  Gilpin  "  : — 

"  At  Edmonton  his  loving  wife 
From  the  balcony  spied 
Her  tender  husband,  wondering  much 
To  see  how  he  did  ride." 

N.B. — Cowper  was  a  Whig. 

Of  course,  these  archaisms  were  already  passing 
away  when  I  began  to  notice  them,  but  some  of 
them  survive  until  this  hour,  and  only  last  winter, 
after  an  evening  service  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  I 
was  delighted  to  hear  a  lady,  admiring  the  illu- 
minated dome,  exclaim,  u  How  well  the  doom 
looks  ! " 

Then,  again,  as  regards  the  names  of  places.  I 
cannot  profess  to  have  heard  "  Lunnon,"  but  I 
have  heard  the  headquarters  of  my  family  called 
"  'Ooburn,"  and  Rome  "  Roome,"  and  Sevres 
"  Saver,"  and  Falmouth  "  F^armouth,"  and  Penrith 
"  Peerith,"  and  Cirencester  "  Ciciter." 

Nowadays  it  is  as  much  as  one  can  do  to  get  a 
cabman  to  take  one  to  Berwick  Street  or  Berkeley 
Square,  unless  one  calls  them  Ber-wick  or  Burkley. 
Gower  Street  and  Pall  Mall  are  pronounced  as  they 
are  spelt ;  and,  if  one  wants  a  ticket  for  Derby,  the 
booking-clerk  obligingly  corrects  one's  request  to 
"  Durby." 


SOCIAL    CHANGES  315 

And,  as  with  pronunciation,  so  also  with  phrase 
and  diction — 

"  Change  and  decay  in  all  around  I  see." 

When  I  was  young  the  word  "  lunch,"  whether 
substantive  or  verb,  was  regarded  with  a  peculiar 
horror,  and  ranked  with  "  'bus  "  in  the  lowest  depths 
of  vulgarity.  To  H  take "  in  the  sense  of  eat  or 
drink  was  another  abomination  which  lay  too  deep 
for  words.  "  You  take  exercise  or  take  physic  ; 
nothing  else,"  said  Brummel  to  the  lady  who  asked 
him  to  take  tea.  "  I  beg  your  pardon,  you  also 
take  a  liberty,"  was  the  just  rejoinder. 

I  well  remember  that,  when  the  journals  of  an 
Illustrious  Person  were  published  and  it  appeared 
that  a  royal  party  had  "taken  luncheon"  on  a  hill, 
it  was  stoutly  contended  in  Whig  circles  that  the 
servants  had  taken  the  luncheon  to  the  hill  where 
their  masters  ate  it ;  and,  when  a  close  examination 
of  the  text  proved  this  gloss  to  be  impossible,  it  was 
decided  that  the  original  must  have  been  written  in 
German,  and  that  it  had  been  translated  by  some  one 
who  did  not  know  the  English  idiom.  To  "ride," 
meaning  to  travel  in  a  carriage,  was,  and  I  hope 
still  is,  regarded  as  the  peculiar  property  of  my 
friend  Pennialinus  ; x  and  I  remember  the  mild  sen- 
sation caused  in  a  Whig  house  when  a  neighbour 
who  had  driven  over  to  luncheon  declined  to  wash 
her  hands  on  the  ground  that  she  had  "ridden  in 
gloves."      The   vehicle    which    was   invented    by  a 

1  A  character  invented  by  Mr.  William  Cory. 


316  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Lord  Chancellor  and  called  after  his  name  was 
scrupulously  pronounced  so  as  to  rhyme  with 
groom,  and  any  one  indiscreet  enough  to  say  that 
he  had  ridden  in  "  the  Row"  would  probably  have 
been  asked  if  he  had  gone  round  by  "  the  Zoo." 

"  Cherry  pie  and  apple  pie  ;  all  the  rest  are  tarts," 
was  an  axiom  carefully  instilled  into  the  young 
gastronomer ;  while  "  to  pass "  the  mustard  was 
bound  in  the  same  bundle  of  abominations  as  "  I'll 
trouble  you,"  "  May  I  assist  you  ? "  "  Not  any, 
thank  you,"  and  "  A  very  small  piece." 

Then,  again,  as  to  what  may  be  called  the 
Manners  of  Eating.  A  man  who  put  his  elbows 
on  the  table  would  have  been  considered  a  Yahoo, 
and  he  who  should  eat  his  asparagus  with  a  knife 
and  fork  would  have  been  classed  with  the  tradi- 
tional collier  who  boiled  his  pineapple.  Fish- 
knives  (like  oxidized  silver  biscuit-boxes)  were 
unknown  and  undreamt-of  horrors.  To  eat  one's 
fish  with  two  forks  was  the  cachet  of  a  certain 
circle,  and  the  manner  of  manipulating  the  stones  of 
a  cherry  pie  was  the  articulus  stantis  vel  cadentis. 
The  little  daughter  of  a  great  Whig  house,  whose 
eating  habits  had  been  contracted  in  the  nursery, 
once  asked  her  mother  with  wistful  longing, 
"  Mamma,  when  shall  I  be  old  enough  to  eat 
bread  and  cheese  with  a  knife,  and  put  the  knife 
in  my  mouth  ?  "  and  she  was  promptly  informed 
that  not  if  she  lived  to  attain  the  age  of  Methuselah 
would  she  be  able  to  acquire  that  "  unchartered 
freedom."      On   the    other    hand,    old    gentlemen 


SOCIAL    CHANGES  317 

of  the  very  highest  breeding  used  after  dinner 
to  rinse  their  mouths  in  their  finger-glasses,  and 
thereby  caused  unspeakable  qualms  in  unaccus- 
tomed guests.  In  that  respect  at  any  rate,  if  in 
no  other,  the  most  inveterate  praiser  of  times 
past  must  admit  that  alteration  has  not  been 
deterioration. 

Another  marked  change  in  society  is  the  diminu- 
tion of  stateliness.  A  really  well-turned-out  carriage, 
with  a  coachman  in  a  wig  and  two  powdered  foot- 
men behind,  is  as  rare  an  object  in  the  Mall  as  a 
hansom  in  Bermondsey  or  a  tandem  in  Bethnal 
Green.  Men  go  to  the  lev6e  in  cabs  or  on  motor- 
cars, and  send  their  wives  to  the  Palace  Ball  in  the 
products  of  the  Coupe"  Company.  The  Dowager 
Duchess  of  Cleveland  (1792-1883)  once  told  me 
that  Lord  Salisbury  had  no  carriage.  On  my  ex- 
pressing innocent  surprise,  she  said,  "  I  have  been 
told  that  Lord  Salisbury  goes  about  London  in  a 
brougham  ;  "  and  her  tone  could  not  have  expressed 
a  more  lively  horror  if  the  vehicle  had  been  a 
coster's  barrow.  People  of  a  less  remote  date  than 
the  Duchess's  had  become  inured  to  barouches  for 
ladies  and  broughams  for  men,  but  a  landau  was 
contemned  under  the  derogatory  nickname  of  a 
"demi-fortune,"  and  the  spectacle  of  a  great  man 
scaling  the  dizzy  heights  of  the  'bus  or  plunging 
into  the  depths  of  the  Twopenny  Tube  would  have 
given  rise  to  lively  comment. 

A  pillar  of  the  Tory  party,  who  died  not  twenty 
years  ago,  finding  his  newly-married  wife  poking 


318  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

the  fire,  took  the  poker  from  her  hands  and  said 
with  majestic  pain,  "  My  dear,  will  you  kindly  re- 
member that  you  are  now  a  countess  ?  "  A  Liberal 
statesman,  still  living,  when  he  went  to  Harrow  for 
the  first  time,  sailed  up  the  Hill  in  the  family  coach, 
and  tradition  does  not  report  that  his  schoolfellows 
kicked  him  with  any  special  virulence. 

I  have  known  people  who  in  travelling  would 
take  the  whole  of  a  first-class  carriage  sooner 
than  risk  the  intrusion  of  an  unknown  fellow- 
passenger  :  their  descendants  would  as  likely  as 
not  reach  their  destination  on  motor-cars,  having 
pulled  up  at  some  wayside  inn  for  mutton  chops 
and  whisky-and-soda. 


XLIII 

SOCIAL    GRACES 

THOUGH  stateliness  has  palpably  diminished,  the 
beauty  of  life  has  as  palpably  increased.  In  old 
days  people  loved,  or  professed  to  love,  fine  pic- 
tures, and  those  who  had  them  made  much  of 
them.  But  with  that  one  exception  no  one  made 
any  attempt  to  surround  himself  with  beautiful 
objects.  People  who  happened  to  have  fine  furni- 
ture used  it  because  they  had  it ;  unless,  indeed, 
the  desire  to  keep  pace  with  the  fashion  induced 
them  to  part  with  Louis  Seize  or  Chippendale  and 
replace  it  by  the  austere  productions  of  Tottenham 
Court  Road.  The  idea  of  buying  a  chimneypiece 
or  a  cabinet  or  a  bureau  because  it  was  beautiful 
never  crossed  the  ordinary  mind.  The  finest  old 
English  china  was  habitually  used,  and  not  seldom 
smashed,  in  the  housekeeper's  room.  It  was  the 
age  of  horse-hair  and  mahogany,  and  crimson  flock 
papers  and  green  rep  curtains.  Whatever  orna- 
ments the  house  happened  to  possess  were  clustered 
together  on  a  round  table  in  the  middle  of  the 
drawing-room.  The  style  has  been  immortalized 
by  the  hand  of  a  master:  "There  were  no  skil- 
fully contrasted  shades  of  grey  or  green,  no  dado, 

319 


320  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

no  distemper.      The  woodwork   was  grained   and 
varnished  after  the  manner  of  the  Philistines,  the 
walls  papered  in  dark  crimson,  with  heavy  curtains 
of   the   same  colour,  and   the   sideboard,   dinner- 
waggon,  and  row  of  stiff  chairs  were  all  carved  in 
the  same  massive  and  expensive  style  of  ugliness. 
The  pictures  were  those  familiar  presentments  of 
dirty  rabbits,  fat  white  horses,  bloated  goddesses, 
and  misshapen  boors  by  masters,  who  if  younger 
than  they  assumed  to  be,  must  have  been  quite  old 
enough  to  know  better."     A  man  who  hung  a  blue- 
and-white  plate  on  a  wall,  or  put  peacocks'  feathers 
in  a  vase,  would  have  been  regarded  as  insane  ; 
and  I  well  remember  the  outcry  of  indignation  and 
scorn  when  a  well-known  collector  of  bric-a-brac 
had  himself  painted  with  a  pet  teapot  in  his  hands. 
In   this  respect  the  change  is  complete.     The 
owners  of  fine  picture-galleries  no  longer  mono- 
polize   "art   in   the   home."     People   who    cannot 
afford  old  masters  invoke  the  genius  of  Mr.  Mor- 
timer Menpes.     If  they  have  not  inherited  French 
furniture  they  buy  it,  or  at  least  imitations  of  the 
real,  which  are  quite  as  beautiful.     A  sage-green 
wash  on  the  wall,  and  a  white  dado  to  the  height 
of  a  man's  shoulder,  cover  a  multitude  of  paper- 
hanger's  sins.     The  commonest  china  is  pretty  in 
form  and  colour.     A  couple  of  rugs  from  Liberty's 
replace  the  hideous  and  costly  carpets  which  lasted 
their  unfortunate  possessors  a  lifetime  ;  and,  where- 
as in  those  distant  days  one  never  saw  a  flower  on 
a  dinner-table,  now  "it  is  roses,  roses  all  the  way," 


SOCIAL   GRACES  321 

or,  when  it   cannot  be  roses,  it   is  daffodils  and 
tulips  and  poppies  and  chrysanthemums. 

All  this  is  the  work  of  the  despised  aesthetes  ;  but 
this  generation  will  probably  see  no  meaning  in 
the  great  drama  of  "  Patience,"  and  has  no  concep- 
tion of  the  tyrannous  ugliness  from  which  Bun- 
thorne  and  his  friends  delivered  us.  Their  double 
achievement  was  to  make  ugliness  culpable,  and  to 
prove  that  beauty  need  not  be  expensive. 

The  same  change  may  be  observed  in  everything 
connected  with  Dinner.  No  longer  is  the  mind 
oppressed  by  those  monstrous  hecatombs  under 
which,  as  Bret  Harte  said,  "  the  table  groaned  and 
even  the  sideboard  sighed."  Frascatelli's  mon- 
strous bills  of  fare,  with  six  "  side  dishes  "  and  four 
sweets,  survive  only  as  monuments  of  what  our 
fathers  could  do.  Racing  plate  and  "epergnes," 
with  silver  goddesses  and  sphinxes  and  rams'  horns, 
if  not  discreetly  exchanged  for  prettier  substitutes, 
hide  their  diminished  heads  in  pantries  and  safes. 
Instead  of  these  horrors,  we  have  bright  flowers 
and  shaded  lights  ;  and  a  very  few,  perhaps  too  few, 
dishes,  which  both  look  pretty  and  taste  good. 
Here,  again,  expensive  ugliness  has  been  routed, 
and  inexpensive  beauty  enthroned  in  its  place. 

The  same  law,  I  believe,  holds  good  about  dress. 
With  the  mysteries  of  woman's  clothes  I  do  not 
presume  to  meddle.  I  do  not  attempt  to  estimate 
the  relative  cost  of  the  satins  and  ermine  and 
scarves  which  Lawrence  painted,  and  the  "  duck's- 
egg  bolero  "  and  "mauve  hopsack"  which  I  have 

x 


322  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

lately  seen  advertized  in  the  list  of  a  winter  sale. 
But  about  men's  dress  I  feel  more  confident.  The 
"  rich  cut  Genoa  velvet  waistcoat,"  the  solemn  frock 
coat,  the  satin  stock,  and  the  trousers  strapped 
under  the  Wellingtons,  were  certainly  hideous,  and 
I  shrewdly  suspect  that  they  were  vastly  more 
expensive  than  the  blue  serge  suits,  straw  hats, 
brown  boots,  and  sailor-knot  ties  in  which  the  men 
of  the  present  day  contrive  to  look  smart  without 
being  stiff. 

When  Mr.  Gladstone  in  old  age  revisited  Oxford 
and  lectured  on  Homer  to  a  great  gathering  of 
undergraduates,  he  was  asked  if  he  saw  any  dif- 
ference between  his  hearers  and  the  men  of  his 
own  time.  He  responded  briskly,  "  Yes,  in  their 
dress,  an  enormous  difference.  I  am  told  that  I  had 
among  my  audience  some  of  the  most  highly-con- 
nected and  richest  men  in  the  university,  and  there 
wasn't  one  whom  I  couldn't  have  dressed  from  top 
to  toe  for  £5." 

I  have  spoken  so  far  of  material  beauty,  and  here 
the  change  in  society  has  been  an  inexpressible  im- 
provement ;  but,  when  I  turn  to  beauty  of  another 
kind,  I  cannot  speak  with  equal  certainty.  Have 
our  manners  improved  ?  Beyond  all  question  they 
have  changed,  but  have  they  changed  for  the 
better  ? 

It  may  seem  incongruous  to  cite  Dr.  Pusey  as  an 
authority  on  anything  more  mundane  than  a  hair- 
shirt,  yet  he  was  really  a  close  observer  of  social 
phenomena,  as  his  famous  sermon  on  Dives   and 


SOCIAL    GRACES  323 

Lazarus,  with  its  strictures  on  the  modern  Dives's 
dinner  and  Mrs.  Dives's  ball-gown,  sufficiently 
testifies.  He  was  born  a  Bouverie  in  1800,  when 
the  Bouveries  still  were  Whigs,  and  he  testified  in 
old  age  to  "the  beauty  of  the  refined  worldly 
manners  of  the  old  school,"  which,  as  he  insisted, 
were  really  Christian  in  their  regard  for  the  feelings 
of  others.  "  If  in  any  case  they  became  soulless  as 
apart  from  Christianity,  the  beautiful  form  was 
there  into  which  real  life  might  re-enter." 

We  do  not,  I  think,  see  much  of  the  "  beautiful 
form "  nowadays.  Men  when  talking  to  women 
lounge,  and  sprawl,  and  cross  their  legs,  and  keep 
one  hand  in  a  pocket  while  they  shake  hands  with 
the  other,  and  shove  their  partners  about  in  the 
"Washington  Post,"  and  wallow  in  the  Kitchen- 
Lancers.  All  this  is  as  little  beautiful  as  can  be 
conceived.  Grace  and  dignity  have  perished  side 
by  side.  And  yet,  oddly  enough,  the  people  who 
are  most  thoroughly  bereft  of  manners  seem  bent 
on  displaying  their  deficiencies  in  the  most  con- 
spicuous places.  In  the  old  days  it  would  have 
been  thought  the  very  height  of  vulgarity  to  run 
after  royalty.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  said  to 
Charles  Greville,  "  When  we  meet  the  Royal  Family 
in  society  they  are  our  superiors,  and  we  owe  them 
all  respect."  That  was  just  all.  If  a  Royal  Person- 
age knew  you  sufficiently  well  to  pay  you  a  visit,  it 
was  an  honour,  and  all  suitable  preparations  were 
made.  "  My  father  walked  backwards  with  a  silver 
candlestick,  and  red  baize  awaited  the  royal  feet." 


324  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

If  you  encountered  a  prince  or  princess  in  society, 
you  made  your  bow  and  thought  no  more  about  it. 
An  old-fashioned  father,  who  had  taken  a  schoolboy 
son  to  call  on  a  great  lady,  said,  "  Your  bow  was 
too  low.  That  is  the  sort  of  bow  we  keep  for  the 
Royal  Family."  There  was  neither  drop-down- 
dead-ativeness,  nor  pushfulness,  nor  familiarity. 
Well-bred  people  knew  how  to  behave  themselves, 
and  there  was  an  end  of  the  matter.  But  to  force 
one's  self  on  the  notice  of  royalty,  to  intrigue  for 
visits  from  Illustrious  Personages,  to  go  out  of  one's 
way  to  meet  princes  or  princesses,  to  parade  before 
the  gaping  world  the  amount  of  intimacy  with 
which  one  had  been  honoured,  would  have  been 
regarded  as  the  very  madness  of  vulgarity. 

Another  respect  in  which  modern  manners  com- 
pare unfavourably  with  ancient  is  the  growing  love 
of  titles.  In  old  days  people  thought  a  great  deal, 
perhaps  too  much,  of  Family.  They  had  a  strong 
sense  of  territorial  position,  and  I  have  heard 
people  say  of  others,  "Oh,  they  are  cousins  of 
ours,"  as  if  that  fact  put  them  within  a  sacred  and 
inviolable  enclosure.  But  titles  were  contemned. 
If  you  were  a  peer,  you  sate  in  the  House  of  Lords 
instead  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  that  was  all. 
No  one  dreamed  of  babbling  about  "peers"  as  a 
separate  order  of  creation,  still  less  of  enumerating 
the  peers  to  whom  they  were  related. 

A  member  of  the  Tory  Government  was  once 
at  pains  to  explain  to  an  entirely  unsympathetic 
audience  that  the  only  reason  why  he  and   Lord 


SOCIAL   GRACES  325 

Curzon  had  not  taken  as  good  a  degree  as  Mr. 
Asquith  was  that,  being  the  eldest  sons  of  peers, 
they  were  more  freely  invited  into  the  County 
society  of  Oxfordshire.  I  can  safely  say  that,  in  the 
sacred  circle  of  the  Great-Grandmotherhood,  that 
theory  of  academical  shortcoming  would  not  have 
been  advanced. 

The  idea  of  buying  a  baronetcy  would  have  been 
thought  simply  droll,  and  knighthood  was  regarded 
as  the  guerdon  of  the  successful  grocer.  I  believe 
that  in  their  inmost  hearts  the  Whigs  enjoyed  the 
Garters  which  were  so  freely  bestowed  on  them ; 
but  they  compounded  for  that  human  weakness  by 
unmeasured  contempt  for  the  Bath,  and  I  doubt  if 
they  had  ever  heard  of  the  Star  of  India.  To  state 
this  case  is  sufficiently  to  illustrate  a  conspicuous 
change  in  the  sentiment  of  society. 


XLIV 

PUBLICITY    V.    RETICENCE 

The  great  people  of  old  time  followed  (quite  un- 
consciously) the  philosopher  who  bade  man  "hide 
his  life."  Of  course,  the  stage  of  politics  was 
always  a  pillory,  and  he  who  ventured  to  stand 
on  it  made  up  his  mind  to  encounter  a  vast 
variety  of  popular  missiles.  "  In  my  situation  as 
Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Oxford,"  said  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  "  I  have  been  much  exposed 
to  authors  ; "  and  men  whom  choice  or  circum- 
stances forced  into  politics  were  exposed  to  worse 
annoyances  than  "authors."  But  the  line  was 
rigidly  drawn  between  public  and  private  life. 
What  went  on  in  the  home  was  sacredly  secreted 
from  the  public  gaze.  People  lived  among  their 
relations  and  friends  and  political  associates,  and 
kept  the  gaping  world  at  a  distance.  Now  we  wor- 
ship Publicity  as  the  chief  enjoyment  of  human 
life.  We  send  lists  of  our  shooting-parties  to 
"Society  Journals."  We  welcome  the  Interviewer. 
We  contribute  personal  paragraphs  to  Classy 
Cuttings.  We  admit  the  photographer  to  our  bed- 
rooms, and  give  our  portraits  to  illustrated  papers. 

We   take    our    exercise    when    we    have   the    best 

326 


PUBLICITY    V.    RETICENCE  327 

chance  of  being  seen  and  noticed,  and  we  never 
eat  our  dinner  with  such  keen  appetites  as  amid 
the  half- world  of  a  Piccadilly  restaurant.  In  brief, 
"Expose  thy  life"  is  the  motto  of  the  new  philo- 
sophy, and  I  maintain  that  in  this  respect,  at  any 
rate,  the  old  was  better. 

With  an  increasing  love  of  publicity  has  come 
an  increasing  contempt  for  reticence.  In  old 
days  there  were  certain  subjects  which  no  one 
mentioned  ;  among  them  were  Health  and  Money. 
I  presume  that  people  had  pretty  much  the  same 
complaints  as  now,  but  no  one  talked  about  them. 
We  used  to  be  told  of  a  lady  who  died  in  agony 
because  she  insisted  on  telling  the  doctor  that 
the  pain  was  in  her  chest  whereas  it  really  was 
in  the  unmentionable  organ  of  digestion.  That 
martyr  to  propriety  has  no  imitators  in  the  pre- 
sent day.  Every  one  has  a  disease  and  a  doctor  ; 
and  young  people  of  both  sexes  are  ready  on  the 
slightest  acquaintance  to  describe  symptoms  and 
compare  experiences.  "  Ice  !  "  exclaimed  a  pretty 
girl  at  dessert,  "good  gracious,  no!  so  bad  for 
indy  " — and  her  companion,  who  had  not  travelled 
with  the  times,  learned  with  amazement  that 
"indy"  was  the  pet  name  for  indigestion.  "How 
bitterly  cold  ! "  said  a  plump  matron  at  an  open- 
air  luncheon;  "just  the  thing  to  give  one  appen- 
dicitis." "Oh!"  said  her  neighbour,  surveying 
the  company,  "we  are  quite  safe  there.  I  shouldn't 
think  we  had  an  appendix  between  us." 

Then,    again,    as    to    money.      In    the    "Sacred 


328  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Circle  of  the  Great-Grandmotherhood "  I  never 
heard  the  slightest  reference  to  income.  Not  that 
the  Whigs  despised  money.  They  were  at  least  as 
fond  of  it  as  other  people,  and,  even  when  it  took 
the  shape  of  slum-rents,  its  odour  was  not  displeas- 
ing. But  it  was  not  a  subject  for  conversation. 
People  did  not  chatter  about  their  neighbours' 
incomes  ;  and,  if  they  made  their  own  money  in 
trades  or  professions,  they  did  not  regale  us  with 
statistics  of  profit  and  loss.  To-day  every  one 
seems  to  be,  if  I  may  use  the  favourite  collo- 
quialism, "  on  the  make  "  ;  and  the  sincerity  of 
the  devotion  with  which  people  worship  money 
pervades  their  whole  conversation  and  colours 
their  whole  view  of  life.  "  Scions  of  aristocracy," 
to  use  the  good  old  phrase  of  Pennialinus,  will 
produce  samples  of  tea  or  floor-cloth  from  their 
pockets,  and  sue  quite  winningly  for  custom.  A 
speculative  bottle  of  extraordinarily  cheap  peach- 
brandy  will  arrive  with  the  compliments  of  Lord 
Tom  Noddy,  who  has  just  gone  into  the  wine 
trade,  and  Lord  Magnus  Charters  will  tell  you  that, 
if  you  are  going  to  put  in  the  electric  light,  his  firm 
has  got  some  really  good  fittings  which  he  can  let 
you  have  on  specially  easy  terms. 

But,  if  in  old  days  Health  and  Money  were  sub- 
jects eschewed  in  polite  conversation,  even  more 
rigid  was  the  avoidance  of  "  risky  "  topics.  To-day 
no  scandal  is  too  gross,  no  gossip  too  prurient. 
Respectable  mothers  chatter  quite  freely  about 
that   "  nest   of    spicery "    over    which    Sir    Gorell 


PUBLICITY    V.    RETICENCE  329 

Barnes  presides,  and  canvass  abominations  with  a 
self-possession  worthy  of  Gibbon  or  Zola.  In  fact, 
as  regards  our  topics  of  conversation,  we  seem  to 
have  reached  the  condition  in  which  the  Paris 
correspondent  of  the  Daily  Telegraph  found  him- 
self when  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  (in  "  Friendship's 
Garland  ")  spoke  to  him  of  Delicacy.  "  He  seemed 
inexplicably  struck  by  this  word  delicacy,  which  he 
kept  repeating  to  himself.  '  Delicacy,'  said  he ; 
1  delicacy,  surely  I  have  heard  that  word  before  ! 
Yes,  in  other  days/  he  went  on  dreamily,  '  in  my 
fresh  enthusiastic  youth,  before  I  knew  Sala,  before 

I    wrote   for    that    infernal    paper .'      *  Collect 

yourself,  my  friend,'  said  I,  laying  my  hand  on 
his  shoulder,  'you  are  unmanned.'"  A  similar 
emotion  would  probably  be  caused  by  any  one  so 
old-fashioned  as  to  protest  that  any  conceivable 
topic  was  ill-adapted  for  discussion  in  general 
society. 

An  extreme  decorum  of  phrase  accompanied 
this  salutary  restriction  of  topics.  To  a  boisterous 
youth  who,  just  setting  out  for  a  choral  festival  in 
a  country  church,  said  that  he  always  thought  a 
musical  service  very  jolly,  an  old  Whig  lady  said 
in  a  tone  of  dignified  amendment,  "  I  trust,  dear 

Mr.  F ,  that  we  shall  derive  not  only  pleasure 

but  profit  from  the  solemnity  of  this  afternoon." 

Closely  related  to  the  love  of  Publicity  and  the 
decay  of  Reticence  is  the  change  in  the  position 
of  women.  This  is  really  a  revolution,  and  it  has 
so    impartially    pervaded    all    departments    of   life 


330  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

that  one  may  plunge  anywhere  into  the  subject 
and  find  the  same  phenomenon. 

Fifty  years  ago  the  view  that  "  comparisons 
don't  become  a  young  woman"  still  held  the  field, 
and,  indeed,  might  have  been  much  more  widely 
extended.  Nothing  "became  a  young  woman," 
which  involved  clear  thinking  or  plain  speaking 
or  independent  acting.  Mrs.  General  and  Mrs. 
Grundy  were  still  powers  in  the  land.  "  Prunes 
and  Prism"  were  fair  burlesques  of  actual  shib- 
boleths. "  Fanny,"  said  Mrs.  General,  "  at  present 
forms  too  many  opinions.  Perfect  breeding  forms 
none,  and  is  never  demonstrative."  This  was 
hardly  a  parody  of  the  prevailing  and  accepted 
doctrine.  To-day  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a 
subject  on  which  contemporary  Fannies  do  not 
form  opinions,  and  express  them  with  intense 
vigour,  and  translate  them  into  corresponding 
action. 

Fifty  years  ago  a  hunting  woman  was  a  rarity, 
even  though  Englishwomen  had  been  horsewomen 
from  time  immemorial.  Lady  Arabella  Vane's  per- 
formances were  still  remembered  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Darlington,  and  Lady  William  Powlett's 
"scyarlet"  habit  was  a  tradition  at  Cottesmore. 
Mrs.  Jack  Villiers  is  the  only  horsewoman  in  the 
famous  picture  of  the  Quorn,  and  she  suitably 
gave  her  name  to  the  best  covert  in  the  Vale  of 
Aylesbury.  But  now  the  hunting  woman  and 
the  hunting  girl  pervade  the  land,  cross  their 
male  friends   at  their   fences,  and  ride  over  them 


PUBLICITY    V.    RETICENCE  331 

when  they  lie  submerged  in  ditches,  with  an  airy 
cheerfulness  which  wins  all  hearts.  In  brief,  it 
may  be  said  that,  in  respect  of  outdoor  exercises, 
whatever  men  and  boys  do  women  and  girls  do. 
They  drive  four-in-hand  and  tandem,  they  manipu- 
late Motors,  they  skate  and  cycle,  and  fence  and 
swim.  A  young  lady  lately  showed  me  a  snap- 
shot of  herself  learning  to  take  a  header.  A  male 
instructor,  classically  draped,  stood  on  the  bank, 
and  she  kindly  explained  that  "the  head  in  the 
water  was  the  man  we  were  staying  with."  Lawn- 
tennis  and  croquet  are  regarded  as  the  amuse- 
ments of  the  mild  and  the  middle-aged ;  the 
ardour  of  girlhood  requires  hockey  and  golf.  I 
am  not  sure  whether  girls  have  taken  to  Rugby 
football,  but  only  last  summer  I  saw  a  girl's 
cricket  eleven  dispose  most  satisfactorily  of  a 
boy's  team. 

I  can  well  remember  the  time  when  a  man,  if 
perchance  he  met  a  lady  while  he  was  smoking  in 
some  rather  unfrequented  street,  flung  his  cigar 
away  and  rather  tried  to  look  as  if  he  had  not 
been  doing  it.  Yet  so  far  have  we  travelled  that 
not  long  ago,  at  a  hospitable  house  not  a  hundred 
miles  from  Berkeley  Square,  the  hostess  and  her 
daughter  were  the  only  smokers  in  a  large  luncheon- 
party,  and  prefaced  their  cigarettes  by  the  cour- 
teous condition,  "  If  you  gentlemen  don't  mind." 

Then,  again,  the  political  woman  is  a  product 
of  these  latter  days.  In  old  times  a  woman  served 
her  husband's  political  party  by  keeping  a  salon, 


332  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

giving  dinners  to  the  bigwigs,  and  "routs"  to  the 
rank  and  file.  I  do  not  forget  the  heroic  elec- 
tioneering of  Georgiana,  Duchess  of  Devonshire, 
but  her  example  was  not  widely  followed.  On  great 
occasions  ladies  sate  in  secluded  galleries  at  public 
meetings,  and  encouraged  the  halting  rhetoric  of 
sons  or  husbands  by  waving  pocket-handkerchiefs. 
If  a  triumphant  return  was  to  be  celebrated,  the 
ladies  of  the  hero's  family  might  gaze  from  above 
on  the  congratulatory  banquet,  like  the  house- 
party  at  Lothair's  coming  of  age,  to  whom  the 
"three  times  three  and  one  cheer  more"  seemed 
like  a  "great  naval  battle,  or  the  end  of  the 
world,  or  anything  else  of  unimaginable  excite- 
ment, tumult,  and  confusion." 

When  it  was  reported  that  a  celebrated  lady  of 
the  present  day  complained  of  the  stuffiness  and 
gloom  of  the  Ladies'  Gallery  in  the  House  of 
Commons,    Mr.   Gladstone — that   stiffest   of   social 

conservatives — exclaimed,  "Mrs.  W ,  forsooth! 

I    have    known    much    greater    ladies    than    Mrs. 

W quite   content  to  look  down  through  the 

ventilator." 


XLV 

TOWN    V.    COUNTRY 

I  SAID  at  the  outset  that  I  am  a  Whig  pur  sang ; 
and  the  historic  Whigs  were  very  worthy  people.  A 
first-rate  specimen  of  the  race  was  that  Duke  of 
Bedford  whom  Junius  lampooned,  and  whom  his 
great-grandson,  Lord  John  Russell,  championed  in 
an  interesting  contrast.  "The  want  of  practical 
religion  and  morals  which  Lord  Chesterfield  held 
up  to  imitation,  conducted  the  French  nobility  to 
the  guillotine  and  emigration  :  the  honesty,  the 
attachment  to  religion,  the  country  habits,  the 
love  of  home,  the  activity  in  rural  business  and 
rural  sports,  in  which  the  Duke  of  Bedford  and 
others  of  his  class  delighted,  preserved  the  Eng- 
lish aristocracy  from  a  flood  which  swept  over 
half  of  Europe,  laying  prostrate  the  highest  of 
her  palaces,  and  scattering  the  ashes  of  the  most 
sacred  of  her  monuments." 

This  quotation  forms  a  suitable  introduction  to 
the  social  change  which  is  the  subject  of  the 
present  chapter.  In  old  days,  people  who  had 
country  houses  lived  in  them.  It  was  the  magni- 
ficent misfortune  of  the  Duke  in  "  Lothair  "  to  have 
so  many  castles  that  he  had  no  home.     In  those 

333 


334  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

days  the  tradition  of  Duty  required  people  who 
had  several  country  houses  to  spend  some  time 
in  each  of  them  ;  and  those  who  had  only  one 
passed  nine  months  out  of  twelve  under  its  sacred 
roof — sacred  because  it  was  inseparably  connected 
with  memories  of  ancestry  and  parentage  and  early 
association,  with  marriage  and  children,  and  pure 
enjoyments  and  active  benevolence  and  neigh- 
bourly goodwill.  In  a  word,  the  country  house 
was  Home. 

People  who  had  no  country  house  were  honestly 
pitied ;  perhaps  they  were  also  a  little  despised. 
The  most  gorgeous  mansion  in  Cromwell  Road 
or  Tyburnia  could  never  for  a  moment  be  quoted 
as  supplying  the  place  of  the  Hall  or  the  Manor. 

For  people  who  had  a  country  house  the  in- 
terests of  life  were  very  much  bound  up  in  the 
park  and  the  covers,  the  croquet-ground  and 
the  cricket-ground,  the  kennel,  the  stable,  and 
the  garden.  I  remember,  when  I  was  an  under- 
graduate, lionizing  some  Yorkshire  damsels  on 
their  first  visit  to  Oxford,  then  in  the  "high  mid- 
summer pomp  "  of  its  beauty.  But  all  they  said 
was,  in  the  pensive  tone  of  an  unwilling  exile, 
"  How  beautifully  the  sun  must  be  shining  on 
the  South  Walk  at  home  ! " 

The  village  church  was  a  great  centre  of 
domestic  affection.  All  the  family  had  been  chris- 
tened in1  it.  The  eldest  sister  had  been  married 
in  it.  Generations  of  ancestry  mouldered  under 
the  chancel  floor.     Christmas  decorations  were  an 


TOWN    V.    COUNTRY  335 

occasion  of  much  innocent  merriment,  and  a  little 
ditty  high  in  favour  in  Tractarian  homes  warned 
the  decorators  to  be — 

"  Unselfish — looking  not  to  see 
Proofs  of  their  own  dexterity ; 
But  quite  contented  that  '  I '  should 
Forgotten  be  in  brotherhood." 

Of  course,  whether  Tractarian  or  Evangelical, 
religious  people  regarded  church-going  as  a  spiri- 
tual privilege  ;  but  every  one  recognized  it  as  a 
civil  duty.  "  When  a  gentleman  is  sur  ses  terres," 
said  Major  Pendennis,  "he  must  give  an  example 
to  the  country  people ;  and,  if  I  could  turn  a 
tune,  I  even  think  I  should  sing.  The  Duke  of 
St.  David's,  whom  I  have  the  honour  of  knowing, 
always  sings  in  the  country,  and  let  me  tell  you 
it  has  a  doosed  fine  effect  from  the  family  pew." 
Before  the  passion  for  "restoration"  had  set  in, 
and  ere  yet  Sir  Gilbert  Scott  had  transmogrified 
the  parish  churches  of  England,  the  family  pew 
was  indeed  the  ark  and  sanctuary  of  the  terri- 
torial system — and  a  very  comfortable  ark  too. 
It  had  a  private  entrance,  a  round  table,  a  good 
assortment  of  arm-chairs,  a  fireplace,  and  a  wood- 
basket.  And  I  well  remember  a  washleather  glove 
of  unusual  size  which  was  kept  in  the  wood- 
basket  for  the  greater  convenience  of  making  up 
the  fire  during  divine  service.  "  You  may  re- 
store the  church  as  much  as  you  like,"  said  an 
old  friend  of  my  youth,  who  was  lay-rector,  to  an 
innovating  incumbent,  "  but  I  must  insist  on  my 


336  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

family  pew  not  being  touched.  If  I  had  to  sit  in 
an  open  seat,  I  should  never  get  a  wink  of  sleep 
again." 

A  country  home  left  its  mark  for  all  time  on 
those  who  were  brought  up  in  it.  The  sons 
played  cricket  and  went  bat-fowling  with  the 
village  boys,  and  not  seldom  joined  with  them  in 
a  poaching  enterprise  in  the  paternal  preserves. 
However  popular  or  successful  or  happy  a  Public- 
School  boy  might  be  at  Eton  or  Harrow,  he 
counted  the  days  till  he  could/ return  to  his  pony 
and  his  gun,  his  ferrets  and  rat-trap  and  fishing- 
rod.  Amid  all  the  toil  and  worry  of  active  life, 
he  looked  back  lovingly  to  the  corner  of  the 
cover  where  he  shot  his  first  pheasant,  or  the 
precise  spot  in  the  middle  of  the  Vale  where 
he  first  saw  a  fox  killed,  and  underwent  the  dis- 
gusting baptism  of  blood. 

Girls,  living  more  continuously  at  home,  entered 
even  more  intimately  into  the  daily  life  of  the 
place.  Their  morning  rides  led  them  across  the 
village  green ;  their  afternoon  drives  were  often 
steered  by  the  claims  of  this  or  that  cottage  to 
a  visit.  They  were  taught  as  soon  as  they  could 
toddle  never  to  enter  a  door  without  knocking, 
never  to  sit  down  without  being  asked,  and  never 
to  call  at  meal-time. 

They  knew  every  one  in  the  village — old  and 
young  ;  played  with  the  babies,  taught  the  boys 
in  Sunday  School,  carried  savoury  messes  to  the 
old   and    impotent,    read    by    the    sick-beds,    and 


TOWN    V.    COUNTRY  337 

brought  flowers  for  the  coffin.  Mamma  knitted 
comforters  and  dispensed  warm  clothing,  organ- 
ized relief  in  hard  winters  and  times  of  epidemic, 
and  found  places  for  the  hobbledehoys  of  both 
sexes.  The  pony-boy  and  the  scullery-maid  were 
pretty  sure  to  be  products  of  the  village.  Very 
likely  the  young-ladies-maid  was  a  village  girl 
whom  the  doctor  had  pronounced  too  delicate 
for  factory  or  farm.  I  have  seen  an  excited 
young  groom  staring  his  eyes  out  of  his  head 
at  the  Eton  and  Harrow  match,  and  exclaiming 
with  rapture  at  a  good  catch,  "  It  was  my  young 
governor  as  '  scouted  '  that.  'E's  nimble,  ain't  'e  ?  " 
And  I  well  remember  an  ancient  stable-helper  at 
a  country  house  in  Buckinghamshire  who  was 
called  "  Old  Bucks,"  because  he  had  never  slept 
out  of  his  native  county,  and  very  rarely  out  of 
his  native  village,  and  had  spent  his  whole  life 
in  the  service  of  one  family. 

Of  course,  when  so  much  of  the  impression- 
able part  of  life  was  lived  amid  the  "  sweet,  sincere 
surroundings  of  country  life,"  there  grew  up, 
between  the  family  at  the  Hall  and  the  families 
in  the  village,  a  feeling  which,  in  spite  of  our 
national  unsentimentality,  had  a  chivalrous  and 
almost  feudal  tone.  The  interest  of  the  poor  in 
the  life  and  doings  of  "  The  Family  "  was  keen  and 
genuine.  The  English  peasant  is  too  much  a 
gentleman  to  be  a  flatterer,  and  compliments 
were  often  bestowed  in  very  unexpected  forms. 
"They  do  tell  me  as  'is  understanding's  no  worse 

Y 


338  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

than  it  always  were,"  was  a  ploughman's  way  of 
saying  that  the  old  squire  was  in  full  possession 
of  his  faculties.  "We  call  'im  ''Is  Lordship,' 
because  'e's  so  old  and  so  cunning,"  was  another's 
description  of  a  famous  pony.  "Ah,  I  know 
you're  but  a  poor  creature  at  the  best!"  was 
the  recognized  way  of  complimenting  a  lady  on 
what  she  considered  her  bewitching  and  romantic 
delicacy. 

But  these  eccentricities  were  merely  verbal,  and 
under  them  lay  a  deep  vein  of  genuine  and  last- 
ing regard.  "  I've  lived  under  four  dukes  and 
four  'ousekeepers,  and  I'm  not  going  to  be  put 
upon  in  my  old  age ! "  was  the  exclamation  of  an 
ancient  poultry-woman,  whose  dignity  had  been 
offended  by  some  irregularity  touching  her  Christ- 
mas dinner.  When  the  daughter  of  the  house 
married  and  went  into  a  far  country,  she  was  sure 
to  find  some  emigrant  from  her  old  home  who 
welcomed  her  with  effusion,  and  was  full  of  en- 
quiries about  his  lordship  and  her  ladyship,  and 
Miss  Pinkerton  the  governess,  and  whether  Mr. 
Wheeler  was  still  coachman,  and  who  lived  now  at 
the  entrance-lodge.  Whether  the  sons  got  com- 
missions, or  took  ranches,  or  become  curates  in 
slums,  or  contested  remote  constituencies,  some 
grinning  face  was  sure  to  emerge  from  the  crowd 
with,  "You  know  me,  sir?  Bill  Juffs,  as  used  to 
go  bird's-nesting  with  you  ;  "  or,  "  You  remember 
my  old  dad,  my  lord  ?  He  used  to  shoe  your  black 
pony." 


TOWN    V.    COUNTRY  339 

When  the  eldest  son  came  of  age,  his  con- 
descension in  taking  this  step  was  hailed  with 
genuine  enthusiasm.  When  he  came  into  his  king- 
dom, there  might  be  some  grumbling  if  he  went 
in  for  small  economies,  or  altered  old  practices, 
or  was  a  "hard  man"  on  the  Bench  or  at  the 
Board  of  Guardians  ;  but,  if  he  went  on  in  the 
good-natured  old  ways,  the  traditional  loyalty- 
was  unabated. 

Lord  Shaftesbury  wrote  thus  about  the  birth  of 
his  eldest  son's  eldest  son  :  "  My  little  village  is  all 
agog  with  the  birth  of  a  son  and  heir  in  the  very 
midst  of  them,  the  first,  it  is  believed,  since  1600, 
when  the  first  Lord  Shaftesbury  was  born.  The 
christening  yesterday  was  an  ovation.  Every 
cottage  had  flags  and  flowers.  We  had  three 
triumphal  arches ;  and  all  the  people  were  exult- 
ing. '  He  is  one  of  us.'  '  He  is  a  fellow-villager.' 
'We  have  now  got  a  lord  of  our  own.'  This  is 
really  gratifying.  I  did  not  think  that  there  re- 
mained so  much  of  the  old  respect  and  affection 
between  peasant  and  proprietor,  landlord  and 
tenant." 

Whether  the  kind  of  relation  thus  described  has 
utterly  perished  I  do  not  know ;  but  certainly  it 
has  very  greatly  diminished,  and  the  cause  of  the 
diminution  is  that  people  live  less  and  less  in  their 
country  houses,  and  more  and  more  in  London. 
For  those  who  are  compelled  by  odious  necessity 
to  sell  or  let  their  hereditary  homes  one  has  nothing 
but  compassion  ;  in  itself  a  severe  trial,  it  is  made 


340  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

still  sharper  to  well-conditioned  people  by  the 
sense  that  the  change  is  at  least  as  painful  to  the 
poor  as  to  themselves.  But  for  those  who,  having 
both  a  country  and  a  London  house,  deliberately 
concentrate  themselves  on  the  town,  forsake  the 
country,  and  abjure  the  duties  which  are  insepar- 
able from  their  birthright,  one  can  only  feel 
Charles  Lamb's  "  imperfect  sympathy."  The 
causes  which  induce  this  dereliction  and  its  results 
on  society  and  on  the  country  may  be  discussed 
in  another  chapter. 


XLVI 

HOME 

I  WAS  speaking  just  now  of  the  growing  tendency 
to  desert  the  country  in  favour  of  London.  I  said 
that  it  was  difficult  to  feel  sympathy  with  people 
who  voluntarily  abandon  Home,  and  all  the  duties 
and  pleasures  which  Home  implies,  in  favour  of 
Lennox  Gardens  or  Portman  Square ;  but  that 
one  felt  a  lively  compassion  for  those  who  make 
the  exchange  under  the  pressure  of — 

"Bitter  constraint  and  sad  occasion  dear." 

Here,  again,  is  another  social  change.  In  old 
days,  when  people  wished  to  economize,  it  was 
London  that  they  deserted.  They  sold  the  "family 
mansion "  in  Portland  Place  or  Eaton  Square ; 
and,  if  they  revisited  the  glimpses  of  the  social 
moon,  they  took  a  furnished  house  for  six  weeks 
in  the  summer  :  the  rest  of  the  year  they  spent 
in  the  country.  This  plan  was  a  manifold  saving. 
There  was  no  rent  to  pay,  and  only  very  small 
rates,  for  every  one  knows  that  country  houses 
were  shamefully  under-assessed.  Carriages  did 
not  require  repainting  every  season,  and  no  new 

clothes  were  wanted.     "What  can  it  matter  what 

341 


342  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

we  wear  here,  where  every  one  knows  who  we 
are  ?"  The  products  of  the  park,  the  home  farm, 
the  hothouses,  and  the  kitchen-garden  kept  the 
family  supplied  with  food.  A  brother  magnate 
staying  at  Beaudesert  with  the  famous  Lord 
Anglesey  waxed  enthusiastic  over  the  mutton, 
and  said,  "  Excuse  my  asking  you  a  plain  ques- 
tion, but  how  much  does  this  excellent  mutton 
cost  you?"  "Cost  me?"  screamed  the  hero. 
"  Good  Gad,  it  costs  me  nothing  !  It's  my  own," 
and  he  was  beyond  measure  astonished  when  his 
statistical  guest  proved  that  "his  own"  cost  him 
about  a  guinea  per  pound.  In  another  great 
house,  conducted  on  strictly  economical  lines, 
it  was  said  that  the  very  numerous  family  were 
reared  exclusively  on  rabbits  and  garden-stuff, 
and  that  their  enfeebled  constitutions  and  dismal 
appearance  in  later  life  were  due  to  this  ascetic 
regimen. 

People  were  always  hospitable  in  the  country, 
but  rural  entertaining  was  not  a  very  costly  busi- 
ness. The  "three  square  meals  and  a  snack," 
which  represent  the  minimum  requirement  of  the 
present  day,  are  a  huge  development  of  the  system 
which  prevailed  in  my  youth.  Breakfast  had 
already  grown  from  the  tea  and  coffee,  and  rolls 
and  eggs,  which  Macaulay  tells  us  were  deemed 
sufficient  at  Holland  House,  to  an  affair  of  covered 
dishes.  Luncheon-parties  were  sometimes  given 
— terrible  ceremonies  which  lasted  from  two  to 
four ;   but   the   ordinary    luncheon    of   the   family 


HOME  343 

was  really  a  snack  from  the  servants'  joint  or  the 
children's  rice-pudding ;  and  five  o'clock  tea  was 
actually  not  invented.  To  remember,  as  I  do, 
the  foundress  of  that  divine  refreshment  seems 
like  having  known  Stephenson  or  Jenner. 

Dinner  was  substantial  enough  in  all  con- 
science, and  the  wine  nearly  as  heavy  as  the  food. 
Imagine  quenching  one's  thirst  with  sherry  in 
the  dog  days  !  Yet  so  we  did,  till  about  half- 
way through  dinner,  and  then,  on  great  occasions, 
a  dark-coloured  rill  of  champagne  began  to  trickle 
into  the  saucer-shaped  glasses.  At  the  epoch  of 
cheese,  port  made  its  appearance  in  company  with 
home-brewed  beer ;  and,  as  soon  as  the  ladies 
and  the  schoolboys  departed,  the  men  applied 
themselves,  with  much  seriousness  of  purpose, 
to  the  consumption  of  claret  which  was  really 
vinous. 

In  this  kind  of  hospitality  there  was  no  great 
expense.  People  made  very  little  difference  be- 
tween their  way  of  living  when  they  were  alone 
and  their  way  of  living  when  they  had  company. 
A  visitor  who  wished  to  make  himself  agreeable 
sometimes  brought  down  a  basket  of  fish  or  a 
barrel  of  oysters  from  London  ;  and,  if  one  had 
no  deer  of  one's  own,  the  arrival  of  a  haunch 
from  a  neighbour's  or  kinsman's  park  was  the 
signal  for  a  gathering  of  local  gastronomers. 

And  in  matters  other  than  meals  life  went  on 
very  much  the  same  whether  you  had  friends 
staying    with    you    or    whether    you    were    alone. 


344  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Your  guests  drove  and  rode,  and  walked  and 
shot,  according  to  their  tastes  and  the  season  of 
the  year.  They  were  carried  off,  more  or  less 
willingly,  to  see  the  sights  of  the  neighbourhood — 
ruined  castles,  restored  cathedrals,  famous  views. 
In  summer  there  might  be  a  picnic  or  a  croquet- 
party  ;  in  winter  a  lawn-meet  or  a  ball.  But  all 
these  entertainments  were  of  the  most  homely 
and  inexpensive  character.  There  was  very  little 
outlay,  no  fuss,  and  no  display.  People,  who 
were  compelled  by  stress  of  financial  weather  to 
put  into  their  country  houses  and  remain  there 
till  the  storm  was  over,  contrived  to  economize 
and  yet  be  comfortable.  They  simply  lived  their 
ordinary  lives  until  things  righted  themselves, 
and  very  likely  did  not  attempt  London  again 
until  they  were  bringing  out  another  daughter, 
or  had  to  make  a  home  for  a  son  in  the  Guards. 

But  now  an  entirely  different  spirit  prevails. 
People  seem  to  have  lost  the  power  of  living 
quietly  and  happily  in  their  country  homes.  They 
all  have  imbibed  the  urban  philosophy  of  George 
Warrington,  who,  when  Pen  gushed  about  the 
country  with  its  "long  calm  days,  and  long  calm 
evenings,"  brutally  replied,  "  Devilish  long,  and 
a  great  deal  too  calm.  I've  tried  'em."  People 
of  that  type  desert  the  country  simply  because 
they  are  bored  by  it.  They  feel  with  Mr.  Luke 
in  "The  New  Republic,"  who,  after  talking  about 
"liberal  air,"  "  sedged  brooks,"  and  "meadow 
grass,"  admitted  that  it  would   be   a  horrid  bore 


HOME  345 

to  have  no  other  society  than  the  clergyman 
of  the  parish,  and  no  other  topics  of  conversa- 
tion than  Justification  by  Faith  and  the  measles. 
They  do  not  care  for  the  country  in  itself ; 
they  have  no  eye  for  its  beauty,  no  sense  of 
its  atmosphere,  no  memory  for  its  traditions. 
It  is  only  made  endurable  to  them  by  sport 
and  gambling  and  boisterous  house-parties  ;  and, 
when  from  one  cause  or  another  these  resources 
fail,  they  are  frankly  bored  and  long  for  London. 
They  are  no  longer  content,  as  our  fathers  were, 
to  entertain  their  friends  with  hospitable  sim- 
plicity. So  profoundly  has  all  society  been 
vulgarized  by  the  worship  of  the  Golden  Calf 
that,  unless  people  can  vie  with  alien  million- 
aires in  the  sumptuousness  with  which  they  "  do 
you  " — delightful  phrase, — they  prefer  not  to  en- 
tertain at  all.  An  emulous  ostentation  has  killed 
hospitality. 

So  now,  when  a  season  of  financial  pressure 
sets  in,  people  shut  up  their  country  houses,  let 
their  shooting,  cut  themselves  off  with  a  sigh  of 
relief  from  all  the  unexciting  duties  and  simple 
pleasures  of  the  Home,  and  take  refuge  from 
boredom  in  the  delights  of  London.  In  London 
life  has  no  duties.  Little  is  expected  of  one, 
and  nothing  required.  One  can  live  on  a  larger 
or  a  smaller  scale  according  to  one's  taste  or 
one's  purse ;  cramp  oneself  in  a  doll's  house 
in  Mayfair,  or  expand  one's  wings  in  a  Kensing- 
tonian    mansion ;    or    even   contract   oneself    into 


346  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

a  flat,  or  hide  one's  diminished  head  in  the 
upper  storey  of  a  shop.  One  can  entertain  or 
not  entertain,  spend  much  or  spend  little,  live 
on  one's  friends  or  be  lived  on  by  them,  exactly 
as  one  finds  most  convenient:  and  unquestion- 
ably social  freedom  is  a  great  element  in  human 
happiness. 

For  many  natures  London  has  an  attractiveness 
which  is  all  its  own,  and  yet  to  indulge  one's  taste 
for  it  may  be  a  grave  dereliction  of  duty.  The 
State  is  built  upon  the  Home  ;  and,  as  a  training- 
place  for  social  virtue,  there  can  surely  be  no 
comparison  between  a  home  in  the  country  and  a 
home  in  London. 

"Home!  Sweet  Home!"  Yes.  (I  am  quoting 
now  from  my  friend,  Henry  Scott  Holland.)  That 
is  the  song  that  goes  straight  to  the  heart  of  every 
English  man  and  woman.  For  forty  years  we 
have  never  asked  Madame  Adelina  Patti  to  sing 
anything  else.  The  unhappy,  decadent,  Latin  races 
have  not  even  a  word  in  their  languages  by  which 
to  express  it,  poor  things  !  Home  is  the  secret  of 
our  honest  British  Protestant  virtues.  It  is  the 
only  nursery  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  citizenship. 
Back  to  it  our  far-flung  children  turn  with  all  their 
memories  aflame.  They  may  lapse  into  rough 
ways,  but  they  keep  something  sound  at  the  core  so 
long  as  they  are  faithful  to  the  old  Home.  There 
is  still  a  tenderness  in  the  voice,  and  tears  are  in 
their  eyes,  as  they  speak  together  of  the  days  that 
can  never  die  out  of  their  lives,  when  they  were  at 


HOME  347 

home  in  the  old  familiar  places,  with  father  and 
mother  in  the  healthy  gladness  of  their  childhood. 
Ah! 

"  Home  !  Sweet  Home  ! 
There's  no  place  like  Home." 

That  is  what  we  all  repeat,  and  all  believe,  and 
cheer  to  the  echo.  And,  behind  all  our  British 
complacency  about  it,  nobody  would  deny  the  vital 
truth  that  there  is  in  this  belief  of  ours.  What- 
ever tends  to  make  the  Home  beautiful,  attractive, 
romantic — to  associate  it  with  the  ideas  of  pure 
pleasure  and  high  duty — to  connect  it  not  only  with 
all  that  was  happiest  but  also  with  all  that  was 
best  in  early  years — whatever  fulfils  these  purposes 
purifies  the  fountains  of  national  life.  A  home,  to 
be  perfectly  a  home,  should  "  incorporate  tradition, 
and  prolong  the  reign  of  the  dead."  It  should 
animate  those  who  dwell  in  it  to  virtue  and  benefi- 
cence by  reminding  them  of  what  others  did,  who 
went  before  them  in  the  same  place  and  lived  amid 
the  same  surroundings. 


XLVII 
HOSPITALITY 

IN  my  last  chapter  I  was  deploring  the  modern 
tendency  of  society  to  desert  the  country  and  culti- 
vate London.  And  the  reason  why  I  deplore  it  is 
that  all  the  educating  influences  of  the  Home  are  so 
infinitely  weaker  in  the  town  than  in  the  country. 
In  a  London  home  there  is  nothing  to  fascinate 
the  eye.  The  contemplation  of  the  mews  and  the 
chimney-pots  through  the  back  windows  of  the 
nursery  will  not  elevate  even  the  most  impressible 
child.  There  is  no  mystery,  no  dreamland,  no 
Enchanted  Palace,  no  Bluebeard's  Chamber,  in  a 
stucco  mansion  built  by  Cubitt  or  a  palace  of  terra- 
cotta on  the  Cadogan  estate.  There  can  be  no 
traditions  of  the  past,  no  inspiring  memories  of 
virtuous  ancestry,  in  a  house  which  your  father 
bought  five  years  ago  and  of  which  the  previous 
owners  are  not  known  to  you  even  by  name. 
"The  Square"  or  "the  Gardens"  are  sorry  sub- 
stitutes for  the  Park  and  the  Pleasure-grounds, 
the  Common  and  the  Downs.  Crossing-sweepers 
are  a  deserving  folk,  but  you  cannot  cultivate 
those  intimate  relations  with  them  which  bind 
you  to   the   lodge-keeper  at  home,  or  to  the  old 

women   in    the    almshouses,   or    the    octogenarian 

348 


HOSPITALITY  349 

waggoner  who  has  driven  your  father's  team 
ever  since  he  was  ten  years  old.  St.  Peter's, 
Eaton  Square,  or  All  Saints,  Margaret  Street, 
may  be  beautifully  ornate,  and  the  congrega- 
tion what  Lord  Beaconsfield  called  "brisk  and 
modish  "  ;  but  they  can  never  have  the  romantic 
charm  of  the  country  church  where  you  were 
confirmed  side  by  side  with  the  keeper's  son,  or 
proposed  to  the  vicar's  daughter  when  you  were 
wreathing  holly  round  the  lectern. 

Then,  again,  as  regards  social  relations  with 
friends  and  neighbours.  "An  emulous  ostenta- 
tion has  destroyed  hospitality."  This  I  believe  is 
absolutely  true,  and  it  is  one  of  the  worst  changes 
which  I  have  seen.  I  have  already  spoken  of 
hospitality  as  practised  in  the  country.  Now  I 
will  say  a  word  about  hospitality  in  London. 

Of  course  rich  people  always  gave  banquets 
from  time  to  time,  and  these  were  occasions  when, 
in  Lord  Beaconsfield's  drolly  vulgar  phrase,  "  the 
dinner  was  stately,  as  befits  the  high  nobility." 
They  were  ceremonious  observances,  conducted 
on  the  constitutional  principle  of  "  cutlet  for 
cutlet,"  and  must  always  have  been  regarded  by 
all  concerned  in  them,  whether  as  hosts  or  guests, 
in  the  light  of  duty  rather  than  of  pleasure. 
Twenty  people  woke  that  morning  with  the  im- 
pression that  something  was  to  be  gone  through 
before  bedtime,  which  they  would  be  glad  enough 
to  escape.  Each  of  the  twenty  went  to  bed  that 
night  more    or    less  weary   and    ruffled,    but   sus- 


350  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

tained  by  the  sense  that  a  social  duty  had  been 
performed.  Banquets,  however,  at  the  worst  were 
only  periodical  events.  Real  hospitality  was  con- 
stant and  informal. 

"Come  and  dine  to-night.  Eight  o'clock.  Pot 
luck.     Don't  dress." 

"  My  dear,  I  am  going  to  bring  back  two  or 
three  men  from  the  House.  Don't  put  off  dinner 
in  case  we  are  kept  by  a  division." 

"  I  am  afraid  I  must  be  going  back.  I  am  only 
paired  till  eleven.   Good-night,  and  so  many  thanks." 

"  Good-night ;  you  will  always  find  some  dinner 
here  on  Government  nights.     Do  look  in  again  ! " 

These  are  the  cheerful  echoes  of  parliamen- 
tary homes  in  the  older  and  better  days  of  un- 
ostentatious entertaining,  and  those  "pot  luck" 
dinners  often  played  an  important  part  in  politi- 
cal manoeuvre.  Sir  George  Trevelyan,  whose  early 
manhood  was  passed  in  the  thick  of  parliamentary 
society,  tells  us,  in  a  footnote  to  "The  Ladies  in 
Parliament,"  that  in  the  season  of  1866  there  was 
much  gossip  over  the  fact  of  Lord  Russell  having 
entertained  Mr.  Bright  at  dinner,  and  that  people 
were  constantly — 

"  Discussing  whether  Bright  can  scan  and  understand 

the  lines 
About  the  Wooden  Horse  of  Troy ;   and  when  and 

where  he  dines. 
Though  gentlemen  should   blush   to   talk   as   if  they 

cared  a  button 
Because  one  night  in  Chesham  Place  he  ate  his  slice 

of  mutton." 


HOSPITALITY  351 

Quite  apart  from  parliamentary  strategy,  im- 
promptu entertaining  in  what  was  called  "  a 
friendly  way "  had  its  special  uses  in  the  social 
system.  There  is  a  delicious  passage  in  "  Lothair  " 
describing  that  hero's  initiation  into  an  easier  and 
more  graceful  society  than  that  in  which  he  had 
been  reared  :  "  He  had  been  a  guest  at  the  oc- 
casional banquets  of  his  uncle,  but  these  were 
festivals  of  the  Picts  and  Scots  ;  rude  plenty  and 
coarse  splendour,  with  noise  instead  of  conver- 
sation, and  a  tumult  of  obstructive  dependants, 
who  impeded  by  their  want  of  skill  the  very  con- 
venience which  they  were  purposed  to  facilitate." 
An  amazing  sentence  indeed,  but  like  all  Lord 
Beaconsfield's  writings,  picturesquely  descriptive, 
and  happily  contrasted  with  the  succeeding  scene  : 
*'A  table  covered  with  flowers,  bright  with  fanci- 
ful crystal,  and  porcelain  that  had  belonged  to 
Sovereigns  who  had  given  a  name  to  its  colour 
or  its  form.  As  for  those  present,  all  seemed 
grace  and  gentleness,  from  the  radiant  daughters 
of  the  house  to  the  noiseless  attendants  who  anti- 
cipated all  his  wants,  and  sometimes  seemed  to 
suggest  his  wishes." 

The  mention  of  "  Lothair "  reminds  people  of 
my  date  that  thirty  years  ago  we  knew  a  house 
justly  famed  for  the  excellent  marriages  which 
the  daughters  made.  There  banquets  were  un- 
known, and  even  dinners  by  invitation  very  rare. 
The  father  used  to  collect  young  men  from 
Lord's,  or   the   Lobby,  or  the  Club,  or  wherever 


352  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

he  had  been  spending  the  afternoon.  Servants 
were  soon  dismissed — "  It  is  such  a  bore  to  have 
them  staring  at  one" — and  the  daughters  of  the 
house  waited  on  the  guests.  Here  obviously  were 
matrimonial  openings  not  to  be  despised  ;  and, 
even  in  families  where  there  were  no  ulterior 
objects  to  be  served,  these  free-and-easy  enter- 
tainings  went  on  from  February  to  July.  Short 
invitations,  pleasant  company,  and  genuine  friend- 
liness were  the  characteristics  of  these  gather- 
ings. Very  often  the  dinner  was  carved  on  the 
table.  One  could  ask  for  a  second  slice  or  another 
wing  without  feeling  greedy,  and  the  claret  and 
amontillado  were  within  the  reach  of  every  guest. 
This,  I  consider,  was  genuine  hospitality,  for  it 
was  natural,  easy,  and  unostentatious. 

But  now,  according  to  all  accounts,  the  spirit  of 
entertaining  is  utterly  changed.  A  dinner  is  not 
so  much  an  opportunity  of  pleasing  your  friends  as 
of  airing  your  own  magnificence  ;  and  ostentation, 
despicable  in  itself,  is  doubly  odious  because  it  is 
emulous.  If  A  has  a  good  cook,  B  must  have  a 
better.  If  C  gave  you  ortolans  stuffed  with  truffles, 
D  must  have  truffles  stuffed  with  ortolans.  If  the 
E's  table  is  piled  with  strawberries  in  April,  the  F's 
must  retaliate  with  orchids  at  a  guinea  a  blossom. 
G  is  a  little  inclined  to  swagger  about  his  wife's 
pearl  necklace,  and  H  is  bound  in  honour  to 
decorate  Mrs.  H  with  a  riviere  which  belonged  to 
the  crown  jewels  of  France. 

And,  as  with  the  food  and  the  decorations,  so 


HOSPITALITY  353 

also  with  the  company.  Here,  again,  Emulous 
Ostentation  carries  all  before  it.  Mr.  Goldbug  is  a 
Yahoo,  but  he  made  his  millions  in  South  Africa 
and  spends  them  in  Park  Lane.  Lord  Heath  is 
the  most  abandoned  bore  in  Christendom,  but  he 
is  an  authority  at  Newmarket.  Lady  Bellair  has 
had  a  notoriously  chequered  career,  but  she  plays 
bridge  in  exalted  circles.  As  Lord  Crewe  sings  of 
a  similar  enchantress — 

"  From  reflections  we  shrink  ; 
And  of  comment  are  chary ; 
But  her  face  is  so  pink, 

And  it  don't  seem  to  vary." 

However,  she  is  unquestionably  smart ;  and 
Goldbug  is  a  useful  man  to  know  ;  and  we  are  not 
going  to  be  outdone  by  the  Cashingtons,  who  got 
Heath  to  dine  with  them  twice  last  year.  So  we 
invite  our  guests,  not  because  we  like  them  or 
admire  them,  for  that  in  these  cases  is  impossible  ; 
not — heaven  knows — because  they  are  beautiful  or 
famous  or  witty  ;  but  because  they  are  the  right 
people  to  have  in  one's  house,  and  we  will  have  the 
right  people  or  perish  in  the  attempt. 


XLVIII 

OSTENTATION 

It  is  many  a  long  year  since  I  saw  the  inside  of  a 
ballroom,  but  by  all  accounts  very  much  the  same 
change  has  come  over  the  spirit  of  ball-giving  as  of 
dinner-giving.  Here  again  the  "  Emulous  Ostenta- 
tion" which  I  have  described  is  the  enemy.  When 
I  first  grew  up,  there  were  infinitely  more  balls 
than  now.  From  Easter  till  August  there  were 
at  least  two  every  night,  and  a  hostess  counted 
herself  lucky  if  she  had  only  one  rival  to  con- 
tend with.  Between  u  p.m.  and  2  a.m.  Grosvenor 
Place  was  blocked  by  the  opposing  streams  of 
carriages  going  from  Mayfair  to  Belgravia,  and 
from  Belgravia  to  Mayfair.  There  were  three  or 
four  really  great  Houses — "  Houses"  with  a  capital 
H — such  as  Grosvenor  House,  Stafford  House, 
Dudley  House,  and  Montagu  House  —  where  a 
ball  could  scarcely  help  being  an  event — or,  as 
Pennialinus  would  say,  "a  function."  But,  put- 
ting these  on  one  side,  the  great  mass  of  hostesses 
contrived  to  give  excellent  balls,  where  every 
one  went  and  every  one  enjoyed  themselves, 
with    very    little    fuss    and    no    ostentation.      The 

drawing-room  of  an  ordinary  house  in   Belgravia 

354 


OSTENTATION  355 

or  Grosvenor  Square  made  a  perfectly  sufficient 
ballroom.  A  good  floor,  a  good  band,  and  plenty 
of  light,  were  the  only  essentials  of  success. 
Decoration  was  represented  by  such  quaint  de- 
vices as  pink  muslin  on  the  banisters,  or  green 
festoons  dependent  from  the  chandelier.  A  good 
supper  was  an  additional  merit  ;  and,  if  the  host 
produced  his  best  champagne,  he  was  held  in 
just  esteem  by  dancing  men.  But  yet  I  well 
remember  a  cold  supper  at  a  ball  which  the  pre- 
sent King  and  Queen  attended,  in  1881,  and  no 
one  grumbled,  though  perhaps  the  young  bloods 
thought  it  a  little  old-fashioned.  The  essence 
of  a  good  ball  was  not  expense  or  display 
or  overwhelming  preparation,  but  the  certainty 
that  you  would  meet  your  friends.  Boys  and 
girls  danced,  and  married  women  looked  on,  or 
only  stole  a  waltz  when  their  juniors  were  at 
supper.  In  those  days  a  ball  was  really  a 
merry-making. 

Nowadays  I  gather  from  the  Morning  Post  that 
balls  are  comparatively  rare  events,  but  what  they 
lack  in  frequency  they  make  up  in  ostentation. 
As  to  the  sums  which  the  Heits  and  the  Heims, 
the  Le  Beers  and  the  De  Porters,  lavish  on  one 
night's  entertainment  1  hear  statistical  accounts 
which  not  only  outrage  economy  but  stagger 
credibility.  Here  again  the  rushing  flood  of  ill- 
gotten  gold  has  overflowed  its  banks,  and  polluted 
the  "  crystal  river  of  unreproved  enjoyment." 

There    is    vet    another    form    of    entertainment 


356  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

which  Emulous  Ostentation  has  destroyed.  A 
few  years  ago  there  still  were  women  in  London 
who  could  hold  a  "  salon."  Of  these  gatherings 
the  principal  attraction  was  the  hostess,  and,  in 
a  secondary  degree,  the  agreeableness  of  the 
people  whom  she  could  gather  round  her.  Of 
fuss  and  finery,  decoration  and  display,  there 
was  absolutely  nothing.  A  typical  instance  of 
what  I  mean  will  perhaps  recur  to  the  memory 
of  some  who  read  this  chapter.  Picture  to  yourself 
two  not  very  large  and  rather  dingy  rooms.  The 
furniture  is  dark  and  old-fashioned — mahogany 
and  rosewood,  with  here  and  there  a  good  cabinet 
or  a  French  armchair.  No  prettiness  of  lace  and 
china ;  no  flowers ;  and  not  very  much  light. 
Books  everywhere,  some  good  engravings,  a 
comfortable  sofa,  and  a  tray  of  tea  and  coffee. 
That  was  all.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  less 
ostentatious  or  a  more  economical  mode  of  enter- 
taining ;  yet  the  lady  who  presided  over  that 
"salon"  had  been  for  fifty  years  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  women  in  Europe ;  had  been  em- 
braced by  Napoleon  ;  had  flirted  with  the  Allied 
Sovereigns ;  had  been  described  by  Byron  ;  had 
discussed  scholarship  with  Grote,  and  statecraft 
with  Metternich  ;  had  sate  to  Lawrence,  and 
caballed  with  Antonelli.  Even  in  old  age  and 
decrepitude  she  opened  her  rooms  to  her  friends 
every  evening  in  the  year,  and  never,  even  in 
the  depths  of  September,  found  her  court  deserted. 
Certainly   it    was   a  social   triumph,    and    one   has 


OSTENTATION  357 

only  to  compare  it  with  the  scene  in  the  stock- 
broker's saloon — the  blaze  of  electric  light,  the 
jungle  of  flowers,  the  furniture  from  Sinclair's, 
the  pictures  from  Christie's — and  to  contrast  the 
assembled  guests.  Instead  of  celebrities,  noto- 
rieties— woman  at  once  under-dressed  and  over- 
dressed ;  men  with  cent,  per  cent,  written  deep 
in  every  line  of  their  expressive  countenances ; 
and,  at  the  centre  of  the  throng,  a  hostess  in  a 
diamond  crown,  who  conducts  her  correspon- 
dence by  telegraph,  because  her  spelling  is  a 
little  shaky  and  mistakes  in  telegrams  are  charit- 
ably attributed  to  the  clerks. 

One  of  the  worst  properties  of  Emulous  Osten- 
tation is  that  it  naturally  affects  its  victims  with 
an  insatiable  thirst  for  money.  If  Mrs.  Tymmyns 
in  Onslow  Gardens  is  to  have  as  good  a  dinner, 
and  as  smart  a  victoria,  and  as  large  a  tiara,  as 
her  friend  Mrs.  Goldbug  in  Park  Lane,  it  is 
obvious  that  Mr.  Tymmyns  must  find  the  money 
somehow.  Who  wills  the  end  wills  the  means  ; 
and,  if  social  exigencies  demand  a  larger  outlay, 
the  Tymmynses  cannot  afford  to  be  too  scrupu- 
lous about  their  method  of  providing  for  it.  I 
suppose  it  is  this  consideration  which  makes  us 
just  now  a  nation  of  gamblers,  whereas  our 
more  respectable  but  less  adventurous  fathers  were 
well  content  to  be  a  nation  of  shopkeepers. 

Of  course,  in  all  ages  there  has  been  a  gambling 
clique  in  society  ;  but  in  old  days  it  kept  itself, 
as  the  saying  is,  to  itself.     Of  necessity  it  always 


358  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

was  on  the  look-out  for  neophytes  to  initiate 
and  to  pillage,  but  the  non-gambling  majority 
of  society  regarded  the  gambling  minority  with 
horror  ;  and  a  man  who  palpably  meant  to 
make  money  out  of  a  visit  to  a  country  house 
would  probably  have  been  requested  to  with- 
draw. "  Order  a  fly  for  Mr.  L.  at  eleven  o'clock," 
said  old  Lord  Crewe  to  the  butler  when  a  guest 
had  committed  a  social  atrocity  under  his  roof. 
"Thank  you,  Lord  Crewe,"  said  Mr.  L.,  "but  not 
for  me.  I  am  not  going  to-day."  "Oh  yes,  you 
are,"  responded  the  host,  and  secreted  himself  in 
his  private  apartments  till  the  offender  had  been 
duly  extruded.  Similar  justice  would,  I  think, 
have  been  dealt  out  to  a  gambler  who  rooked 
the  young  and  the  inexperienced.  Not  so  to- 
day ;  the  pigeon,  however  unfledged  and  tender,  is 
the  appointed  prey  of  the  rook,  and  the  venerable 
bird  who  does  the  plucking  is  entirely  undeterred 
by  any  considerations  of  pity,  shame,  or  fear.  "  Is 
he  any  good  ?"  is  a  question  which  circulates  round 
the  Board  of  Green  Cloth  whenever  a  new  face  fresh 
from  Oxford  or  Sandhurst  is  noted  in  the  social 
throng.  "  Oh  yes,  he's  all  right ;  I  know  his  people," 
may  be  the  cheerful  response ;  or  else,  in  a  very 
different  note,  "  No,  he  hasn't  got  a  feather  to  fly 
with."  Fortunate  is  the  youth  on  whom  this  dis- 
paraging verdict  is  pronounced,  for  in  that  case  he 
may  escape  the  benevolent  attentions  of  the 

"  Many-wintered  crow 
That  leads  the  gambling  rookery  home." 


OSTENTATION  359 

But  even  impecuniosity  does  not  always  protect 
the  inexperienced.  A  lady  who  had  lived  for 
some  years  in  the  country  returned  to  London 
not  long  ago,  and,  enumerating  the  social  changes 
which  she  had  observed,  she  said,  "  People  seem 
to  marry  on  ^500  a  year  and  yet  have  diamond 
tiaras."  It  was,  perhaps,  a  too  hasty  generalization, 
but  an  instance  in  point  immediately  recurred  to 
my  recollection.  A  young  couple  had  married 
with  no  other  means  of  subsistence  than  smart- 
ness, good  looks,  and  pleasant  manners.  After  a 
prolonged  tour  round  the  country  houses  of  their 
innumerable  friends,  they  settled  down  at  Wool- 
wich. "Why  Woolwich?"  was  the  natural  en- 
quiry ;  and  the  reason,  when  at  length  it  came 
to  light,  was  highly  characteristic  of  the  age.  It 
appeared  that  these  kind  young  people  used  to 
give  nice  little  evening  parties,  invite  the  "  Gentle- 
men Cadets  "  from  Woolwich  Academy,  and  make 
them  play  cards  for  money.  The  device  of  set- 
ting up  housekeeping  on  the  pocket-money  of 
babes  and  sucklings  is  thoroughly  symptomatic 
of  our  decadence.  Emulous  Ostentation  makes 
every  one  want  more  money  than  he  has,  and  at 
the  same  time  drugs  all  scruples  of  conscience 
as  to  the  method  of  obtaining  it. 


XLIX 

PRINCIPLE    AND    PREJUDICE 

Mr.  J.  A.  Froude  once  told  me  that  he  did  not 
in  the  least  mind  the  accusation  which  was  brought 
against  him  (certainly  not  without  reason)  of  being 
prejudiced.  "A  good  stiff  prejudice,"  he  said, 
"  is  a  very  useful  thing.  It  is  like  a  rusty  weather- 
cock. It  will  yield  to  a  strong  and  long-continued 
blast  of  conviction,  but  it  does  not  veer  round 
and  round  in  compliance  with  every  shifting 
current  of  opinion." 

What  Mr.  Froude  expressed  other  people  felt, 
though  perhaps  they  would  not  have  cared  to 
avow  it  so  honestly. 

One  of  the  most  notable  changes  which  I  have 
seen  is  the  decay  of  prejudice.  In  old  days 
people  felt  strongly  and  spoke  strongly,  and  acted 
as  they  spoke.  In  every  controversy  they  were 
absolutely  certain  that  they  were  right  and  that 
the  other  side  was  wrong,  and  they  did  not  mince 
their  words  when  they  expressed  their  opinions. 

The  first  Lord  Leicester  of  the  present  creation 
(1775-1844)  told  my  father  (1807-1894)  that,  when 
he  was  a  boy,  his  grandfather  had  taken  him  on 

his  knee  and  said,  "  Now,  my  dear  Tom,  whatever 

360 


PRINCIPLE    AND    PREJUDICE        361 

else  you  do  in  life,  mind  you  never  trust  a 
Tory  ;  "  and  Lord  Leicester  added,  "  I  never  have, 
and,  by  George,  I  never  will."  On  the  other 
hand,  when  Dr.  Longley,  afterwards  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  did  homage  on  his  appointment  to 
the  see  of  Ripon,  King  William  IV.  said,  "  Bishop 
of  Ripon,  I  charge  you,  as  you  shall  answer 
before  Almighty  God,  that  you  never  by  word  or 

deed  give  encouragement  to  those  d d  Whigs, 

who  would  upset  the  Church  of  England." 

John  Keble,  the  gentle  saint  of  the  Tractarian 
movement,  when  he  saw  the  Whigs  preparing  to 
attack  the  property  of  the  Church,  proclaimed 
that  the  time  had  come  when  "scoundrels  should 
be  called  scoundrels."  And  the  Tractarians  had 
no  monopoly  of  vigorous  invective,  for,  when 
their  famous  "Tract  XC."  incurred  the  censure  of 
an  Evangelical  dean,  he  urbanely  remarked  that 
"he  would  be  sorry  to  trust  the  author  of  that 
tract  with  his  purse." 

Macaulay,  on  the  morning  after  a  vital  division, 
in  which  the  Whigs  had  saved  their  places  by 
seventy-nine  votes,  wrote  triumphantly  to  his 
sister — 

"  So  hang  the  dirty  Tories,  and  let  them  starve  and  pine, 
And  hurrah!  for  the  majority  of  glorious  seventy-nine." 

The  same  cordial  partisan  wrote  of  a  political 
opponent  that  he  was  "a  bad,  a  very  bad,  man; 
a  disgrace  to  politics  and  to  literature ;  "  and, 
of  an  acquaintance  who  had  offended  him  socially, 


362  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

"  his  powers  gone  ;  his  spite  immortal — a  dead 
nettle." 

The  great  and  good  Lord  Shaftesbury,  repudi- 
ating the  theology  of  "  Ecce  Homo,"  pronounced  it 
"  the  most  pestilential  book  ever  vomited  from 
the  jaws  of  Hell ; "  and,  dividing  his  political 
favours  with  admirable  impartiality,  he  denounced 
"the  brazen  faces,  low  insults,  and  accursed 
effrontery "  of  the  Radicals ;  declared  that  Mr. 
Gladstone's  "  public  life  had  long  been  an  effort 
to  retain  his  principles  and  yet  not  lose  his 
position  ;"  and  dismissed  Lord  Beaconsfield  as  "a 
leper,  without  principle,  without  feeling,  without 
regard  to  anything,  human  or  divine,  beyond  his 
personal  ambition."  In  the  same  spirit  of  hearty 
prejudice,  Bishop  Wilberforce  deplored  the  politi- 
cal exigencies  which  had  driven  his  friend  Glad- 
stone into  "  the  foul  arms  of  the  Whigs."  In 
the  opposite  camp  was  ranged  a  lady,  well  re- 
membered in  the  inner  circles  of  Whiggery,  who 
never  would  enter  a  four-wheeled  cab  until  she 
had  elicited  from  the  driver  that  he  was  not  a 
Puseyite  and  was  a  Whig. 

"  Mamma,"  asked  a  little  girl  of  Whig  parent- 
age, who  from  her  cradle  had  heard  nothing  but 
denunciation  of  her  father's  political  opponents, 
"are  Tories  born  wicked,  or  do  they  grow 
wicked  afterwards  ?  "  And  her  mother  judiciously 
replied,  "  My  dear,  they  are  born  wicked  and 
grow  worse." 

But    alas  !    they    are    "  gone   down    to    Hades, 


PRINCIPLE    AND    PREJUDICE       363 

even  many  stalwart  sons  of  heroes," — with  King 
William  at  their  head,  and  Lord  Shaftesbury  and 
Lord  Leicester,  and  Keble  and  Macaulay  and 
Froude  in  his  wake — men  who  knew  what  they 
believed,  and,  knowing  it,  were  not  ashamed  to 
avow  it,  and  saw  little  to  praise  or  like  in  the 
adherents  of  a  contrary  opinion. 

They  are  gone,  and  we  are  left — an  unprejudiced, 
but  an  invertebrate  and  a  flaccid,  generation. 
No  one  seems  to  believe  anything  very  firmly. 
No  one  has  the  slightest  notion  of  putting  him- 
self to  any  inconvenience  for  his  belief.  No  one 
dreams  of  disliking  or  distrusting  a  political  or 
religious  opponent,  or  of  treating  difference  of 
opinion  as  a  line  of  social  cleavage. 

In  old  days,  King  Leopold  of  Belgium  told 
Bishop  Wilberforce  that  "  the  only  position  for 
a  Church  was  to  say,  '  Believe  this  or  you  are 
damned.' "  To-day  nothing  in  religion  is  re- 
garded as  unquestionably  true.  When  the  late 
Archbishop  Benson  first  became  acquainted  with 
society  in  London,  he  asked,  in  shocked  amaze- 
ment, "What  do  these  people  believe?" — and 
no  very  satisfactory  answer  was  forthcoming. 
If  society  has  any  religious  beliefs  (and  this  is 
more  than  questionable),  it  holds  them  with  the 
loosest  grasp,  and  is  on  the  easiest  terms  of 
intercourse  with  every  other  belief  and  unbelief. 
The  most  fashionable  teachers  of  religion  have 
one  eye  nervously  fixed  on  the  ever-shifting 
currents  of  negation,  talk  plausibly  about  putting 


364  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

the  Faith  in  its  proper  relation  with  modern 
thought,  and  toil  panting  in  the  wake  of  science  ; 
only  to  find  each  fresh  theory  exploded  just  at 
the  moment  when  they  have  managed  to  appre- 
hend it. 

We  used  to  be  taught  in  our  nurseries  that,  when 
"  Old  Daddy  Longlegs  wouldn't  say  his  prayers,"  it 
was  our  duty  to  "Take  him  by  the  left  leg  and 
throw  him  downstairs  ;  "  and  the  student  of  folklore 
will  be  pleased  to  observe  in  this  ditty  the  imme- 
morial inclination  of  mankind  to  punish  people 
who  will  not  square  their  religion  with  ours.  The 
spirit  of  religious  persecution  dies  hard,  but  the 
decay  of  prejudice  has  sapped  its  strength.  It  does 
not  thrive  in  the  atmosphere  of  modern  indifferent- 
ism,  and  admirable  ladies  who  believe  that  Ritu- 
alists ride  donkeys  on  Palm  Sunday  and  sacrifice 
lambs  on  Good  Friday  find  it  difficult  to  revive 
the  cry  of  "  No  Popery"  with  any  practical  effect. 

The  decay  of  prejudice  in  the  sphere  of  politics 
is  even  more  remarkable  than  in  that  of  religion. 
In  old  days,  political  agreement  was  a  strong  and 
a  constraining  bond.  When  people  saw  a  clear 
right  and  wrong  in  politics,  they  governed  their 
private  as  well  as  their  public  life  accordingly. 
People  who  held  the  same  political  beliefs  lived 
and  died  together.  In  society  and  hospitality,  in 
work  and  recreation,  in  journalism  and  literature — 
even  in  such  seemingly  indifferent  matters  as  art 
and  the  drama — they  were  closely  and  permanently 
associated. 


PRINCIPLE    AND    PREJUDICE        365 

Eton  was  supposed  to  cherish  a  romantic  affec- 
tion for  the  Stuarts,  and  therefore  to  be  a  fit  train- 
ing place  for  sucking  Tories  ;  Harrow  had  always 
been  Hanoverian,  and  therefore  attracted  little 
Whigs  to  its  Hill.  Oxford,  with  its  Caroline  theo- 
logy and  Jacobite  tradition,  was  the  Tory  univer- 
sity ;  Cambridge  was  the  nursing-mother  of  Whigs, 
until  Edinburgh,  under  the  influence  of  Jeffrey  and 
Brougham,  tore  her  babes  from  her  breast.  In 
society  you  must  choose  between  the  Duchess 
of  Devonshire  and  the  Duchess  of  Gordon,  or, 
in  a  later  generation,  between  Lady  Holland  and 
Lady  Jersey.  In  clubland  the  width  of  St.  James's 
Street  marked  a  dividing  line  of  abysmal  depth  ; 
and  to  this  day  "  Grillon's  "  remains  the  memorial 
of  an  attempt,  then  unique,  to  bring  politicians  of 
opposite  sides  together  in  social  intercourse.  On 
the  one  side  stood  Scott — where  Burke  had  stood 
before  him — the  Guardian  Angel  of  Monarchy 
and  Aristocracy  :  on  the  other  were  Shelley  and 
Byron,  and  (till  they  turned  their  coats)  the  emanci- 
pated singers  of  Freedom  and  Humanity.  The 
two  political  parties  had  even  their  favourite  actors, 
and  the  Tories  swore  by  Kemble  while  the  Whigs 
roared  for  Kean. 

Then,  as  now,  the  Tories  were  a  wealthy, 
powerful,  and  highly-organized  confederacy.  The 
Whigs  were  notoriously  a  family  party.  From 
John,  Lord  Gower,  who  died  in  1754,  and  was 
the  great-great-great-grandfather  of  the  present 
Duke    of    Sutherland,    descend    all    the    Gowers, 


366  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Levesons,  Howards,  Cavendishes,  Grosvenors,  Har- 
courts,  and  Russells  who  walk  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  It  is  a  goodly  company.  Well  might 
Thackeray  exclaim,  "  I'm  not  a  Whig ;  but  oh, 
how  I  should  like  to  be  one  ! " 

Lord  Beaconsfield  described  in  "Coningsby" 
how  the  Radical  manufacturer,  sending  his  boy  to 
Eton,  charged  him  to  form  no  intimacies  with  his 
father's  hereditary  foes.  This  may  have  been  a 
flight  of  fancy ;  but  certainly,  when  a  lad  was 
going  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  his  parents  and 
family  friends  would  warn  him  against  entering 
into  friendships  with  the  other  side.  The  Uni- 
versity Clubs  which  he  joined  and  the  votes  which 
he  gave  at  the  Union  were  watched  with  anxious 
care.  He  was  early  initiated  into  the  political 
society  to  which  his  father  belonged.  Extraneous 
intimacies  were  regarded  with  the  most  suspicious 
anxiety.  Mothers  did  all  they  knew  to  make  their 
darlings  acquainted  with  daughters  of  families 
whose  political  faith  was  pure,  and  I  have  myself 
learned,  by  not  remote  tradition,  the  indignant 
horror  which  pervaucu  a  great  Whig  family  when 
the  heir-presumptive  to  its  honours  married  the 
daughter  of  a  Tory  Lord  Chamberlain.  "That 
girl  will  ruin  the  politics  of  the  family  and  undo 
the  work  of  two  hundred  years"  was  the  prophecy; 
and  I  have  seen  it  fulfilled. 


CULTURE 

One  of  the  social  changes  which  most  impresses 
me  is  the  decay  of  intellectual  cultivation.  This 
may  sound  paradoxical  in  an  age  which  habitually 
talks  so  much  about  Education  and  Culture  ;  but 
I  am  persuaded  that  it  is  true.  Dilettantism  is 
universal,  and  a  smattering  of  erudition,  infinitely 
more  offensive  than  honest  and  manly  ignorance, 
has  usurped  the  place  which  was  formerly  occu- 
pied by  genuine  and  liberal  learning.  My  own 
view  of  the  subject  is  probably  tinged  by  the  fact 
that  I  was  born  a  Whig  and  brought  up  in  a 
Whiggish  society  ;  for  the  Whigs  were  rather 
specially  the  allies  of  learning,  and  made  it  a  point 
of  honour  to  know,  though  r^ver  to  parade,  the 
best  that  has  been  thought  and  written.  Very 
likely  they  had  no  monopoly  of  culture,  and  the 
Tories  were  just  as  well-informed.  But  a  man 
"  belongs  to  his  belongings,"  and  one  can  only 
describe  what  one  has  seen  ;  and  here  the  contrast 
between  Past  and  Present  is  palpable  enough.  I 
am  not  now  thinking  of  professed  scholars  and 
students,  such  as  Lord  Stanhope  and  Sir  Charles 

Bunbury,  or  of  professed  blue-stockings,  such  as 

367 


368  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

Barbarina  Lady  Dacre  and  Georgiana  Lady  Chat- 
terton  ;  but  of  ordinary  men  and  women  of  good 
family  and  good  position,  who  had  received  the 
usual  education  of  their  class  and  had  profited 
by  it. 

Mr.  Gladstone  used  to  say  that,  in  his  school- 
days at  Eton,  it  was  possible  to  learn  much  or 
to  learn  nothing,  but  it  was  not  possible  to  learn 
superficially.  And  one  saw  the  same  in  after- 
life. What  people  professed  to  know  they  knew. 
The  affectation  of  culture  was  despised ;  and 
ignorance,  where  it  existed,  was  honestly  con- 
fessed. For  example,  every  one  knew  Italian, 
but  no  one  pretended  to  know  German.  I  re- 
member men  who  had  never  been  to  a  Uni- 
versity but  had  passed  straight  from  a  Public 
School  to  a  Cavalry  Regiment  or  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  who  yet  could  quote  Horace  as 
easily  as  the  present  generation  quotes  Kipling. 
These  people  inherited  the  traditions  of  Mrs. 
Montagu,  who  "vindicated  the  genius  of  Shake- 
speare against  the  calumnies  of  Voltaire,"  and 
they  knew  the  greatest  poet  of  all  time  with  an 
absolute  ease  and  familiarity.  They  did  not 
trouble  themselves  about  various  readings  and 
corrupt  texts  and  difficult  passages.  They  had 
nothing  in  common  with  that  true  father  of  all 
Shakespearean  criticism,  Mr.  Curdle  in  "Nicholas 
Nickleby,"  who  had  written  a  treatise  on  the 
question  whether  Juliet's  nurse's  husband  was 
really  "a  merry  man"  or  whether  it  was  merely 


CULTURE  369 

his  widow's  affectionate  partiality  that  induced 
her  so  to  report  him.  But  they  knew  the  whole 
mass  of  the  plays  with  a  wide  and  generous 
intimacy  ;  their  speech  was  saturated  with  the 
immortal  diction,  and  Hamlet's  speculations  were 
their  nearest  approach  to  metaphysics. 

Broadly  speaking,  all  educated  people  knew  the 
English  poets  down  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Byron  and  Moore  were  enjoyed  with  a 
sort  of  furtive  and  fearful  pleasure  ;  and  Words- 
worth was  tolerated.  Every  one  knew  Scott's 
novels  by  heart,  and  had  his  or  her  favourite 
heroine  and  hero. 

Then,  again,  all  educated  people  knew  history 
in  a  broad  and  comprehensive  way.  They  did  not 
concern  themselves  about  ethnological  theories, 
influences  of  race  and  climate  and  geography, 
streams  of  tendency,  and  the  operation  of  un- 
seen laws ;  but  they  knew  all  about  the  great 
people  and  the  great  events  of  time.  They  were 
conversant  with  all  that  was  concrete  and  ascer- 
tainable ;  and  they  took  sides  as  eagerly  and  as 
definitely  in  the  strifes  of  Yorkist  and  Lancas- 
trian, Protestant  and  Papist,  Roundhead  and 
Cavalier,  as  in  the  controversies  over  the  Reform 
Bill  or  the  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws. 

Then,  again,  all  educated  people  knew  the  laws 
of  architecture  and  of  painting ;  and,  though 
it  must  be  confessed  that  in  these  respects 
their  views  were  not  very  original,  still  they 
were  founded  on  first-hand  knowledge   of  famous 


2  A 


370  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

models,  and,  though  conventional,  were  never 
ignorant. 

But  it  will  be  said  that  all  this  represents  no 
very  overwhelming  mass  of  culture,  and  that,  if 
these  were  all  the  accomplishments  which  the 
last  generation  had  to  boast  of,  their  successors 
have  no  reason  to  dread  comparison. 

Well,  I  expressly  said  that  I  was  not  describing 
learned  or  even  exceptionally  well-read  people,  but 
merely  the  general  level  of  educated  society ;  and 
that  level  is,  I  am  persuaded,  infinitely  lower  than 
it  was  in  former  generations.  Of  course  there  are 
instances  to  the  contrary  which  perplex  and 
disturb  the  public  judgment,  and  give  rise  to 
the  delusion  that  this  is  a  learned  age.  Thus  we 
have  in  society  and  politics  such  scholars  as  Lord 
Milner  and  Mr.  Asquith  and  Mr.  Herbert  Paul ;  but 
then  there  have  always  been  some  scholars  in 
public  life,  so  there  is  nothing  remarkable  in  the 
persistence  of  the  type ;  whereas,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  system  of  smattering  and  top-dressing 
which  pervades  Universities  and  Public  Schools 
produces  an  ever-increasing  crop  of  gentlemen 
who,  like  Mr.  Riley  in  "The  Mill  on  the  Floss," 
have  brought  away  with  them  from  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  a  general  sense  of  knowing  Latin, 
though  their  comprehension  of  any  particular 
Latin  is  not  ready. 

It  is,  I  believe,  generally  admitted  that  we  speak 
French  less  fluently  and  less  idiomatically  than 
our  fathers.     The  "barbarous  neglect"  of  Italian, 


CULTURE  371 

which  used  to  rouse  Mr.  Gladstone's  indignation, 
is  now  complete ;  and  an  even  superstitious  re- 
spect for  the  German  language  is  accompanied 
by  a  curious  ignorance  of  German  literature.  I 
remember  an  excellent  picture  in  Punch  which 
depicted  that  ideal  representative  of  skin-deep 
culture — the  Rev.  Robert  Elsmere — on  his  knees 
before  the  sceptical  squire,  saying,  "  Pray,  pray, 
don't  mention  the  name  of  another  German  writer, 
or  I  shall  have  to  resign  my  living." 

Then,  again,  as  regards  women  ;  of  whom,  quite 
as  much  as  of  men,  I  was  thinking  when  I  de- 
scribed the  culture  of  bygone  society.  Here  and 
there  we  see  startling  instances  of  erudition  which 
throw  a  reflected  and  undeserved  glory  upon  the 
undistinguished  average.  Thus  we  have  seen  a 
lady  Senior  Wrangler  and  a  lady  Senior  Classic, 
and  I  myself  have  the  honour  of  knowing  a  sweet 
girl-graduate  with  golden  hair,  who  got  two  Firsts 
at  Oxford. 

The  face  of  the  earth  is  covered  with  Girls' 
High  Schools,  and  Women's  Colleges  standing 
where  they  ought  not.  I  am  told,  but  do  not 
know,  that  girl-undergraduates  are  permitted  to 
witness  physiological  experiments  in  the  torture- 
dens  of  science ;  and  a  complete  emancipation 
in  the  matter  of  reading  has  introduced  women 
to  regions  of  thought  and  feeling  which  in  old 
days  were  the  peculiar  domain  of  men.  The 
results  are  not  far  to  seek. 

One  lady  boldly  takes  the  field  with  an  assault 


372  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

on  Christianity,  and  her  apparatus  of  belated 
criticism  and  second-hand  learning  sets  all  society 
agape.  Another  fills  a  novel  with  morbid  path- 
ology, slays  the  villain  by  heart-disease,  or  makes 
the  heroine  interesting  with  phthisis ;  and  people, 
forgetting  Mr.  Casaubon  and  Clifford  Gray,  ex- 
claim, "  How  marvellous  !  This  is,  indeed,  original 
research."  A  third,  a  fourth,  and  a  fifth  devote 
themselves  to  the  task  of  readjusting  the  relation 
of  the  sexes,  and  fill  their  passionate  volumes 
with  seduction  and  lubricity.  And  here,  again, 
just  because  our  mothers  did  not  traffic  in  these 
wares,  the  undiscerning  public  thinks  that  it  has 
discovered  a  new  vein  of  real  though  unsavoury 
learning,  and  ladies  say,  "  It  is  not  exactly  a 
pleasant  book,  but  one  cannot  help  admiring  the 
power." 

Now  I  submit  that  these  abnormalities  are  no 
substitute  for  decent  and  reasonable  culture. 
Pedantry  is  not  learning ;  and  a  vast  deal  of 
specialism,  "  mugged-up,"  as  boys  say,  at  the 
British  Museum  and  the  London  Library,  may 
co-exist  with  a  profound  ignorance  of  all  that  is 
really  worth  knowing.  It  sounds  very  intellectual 
to  theorize  about  the  authorship  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  and  to  scoff  at  St.  John's  "  senile  itera- 
tions and  contorted  metaphysics "  ;  but,  when  a 
clergyman  read  St.  Paul's  eulogy  on  Charity  in- 
stead of  the  address  at  the  end  of  a  wedding, 
one  of  his  hearers  said,  "  How  very  appropriate 
that  was  !     Where  did  you  get  it  from  ?  " 


CULTURE  373 

We  can  all  patter  about  the  traces  of  Bacon's 
influence  in  "The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  and 
ransack  our  family  histories  for  the  original  of 
"Mr.  W.  H."  But,  when  "Cymbeline"  was  put 
on  the  stage,  society  was  startled  to  find  that 
the  title-role  was  not  a  woman's.  A  year  or  two 
ago  some  excellent  scenes  from  Jane  Austen's 
novels  were  given  in  a  Belgravian  drawing-room, 
and  a  lady  of  the  highest  notoriety,  enthusiasti- 
cally praising  the  performance,  enquired  who  was 
the  author  of  the  dialogue  between  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  John  Dashwood,  and  whether  he  had  written 
anything  else. 

I  have  known  in  these  later  years  a  judge  who 
had  never  seen  the  view  from  Richmond  Hill  ; 
a  publicist  who  had  never  heard  of  Lord  Althorp  ; 
and  an  authoress  who  did  not  know  the  name 
of  Izaak  Walton.  But  probably  the  most  typical 
illustration  of  modern  culture  was  the  reply  of  a 
lady  who  had  been  enthusing  over  the  Wagnerian 
Cycle,  and,  when  I  asked  her  to  tell  me  quite 
honestly,  as  between  old  friends,  if  she  really 
enjoyed  it,  replied,  "  Oh  yes  !  I  think  one  likes 
Wagner — doesn't  one  ?  " 


LI 

RELIGION 

There  once  was  an  Evangelical  lady  who  had 
a  Latitudinarian  daughter  and  a  Ritualistic  son. 
On  Sunday  morning,  when  they  were  forsaking 
the  family  pew  and  setting  out  for  their  respective 
places  of  objectionable  worship,  these  graceless 
young  people  used  to  join  hands  and  exclaim, 
"  Look  at  us,  dear  mamma  !  Do  we  not  exem- 
plify what  you  are  so  fond  of  saying,  '  Infidelity 
and  superstition,  those  kindred  evils,  go  hand  in 
hand '  ?  " 

The  combination  thus  flippantly  stated  is  a 
conspicuous  sign  of  the  present  times.  The  decay 
of  religion  and  the  increase  of  superstition  are 
among  the  most  noteworthy  of  the  social  changes 
which  I  have  seen. 

When  I  speak  of  the  decay  of  religion,  of 
course  I  must  be  understood  to  refer  only  to 
external  observances.  As  to  interior  convictions, 
I  have  neither  the  will  nor  the  power  to  investi- 
gate them.  I  deal  only  with  the  habits  of  religious 
practice,  and  in  this  respect  the  contrast  between 
Then  and  Now  is  marked  indeed. 

In  the  first  place,  grace  was  then   said  before 

374 


RELIGION  375 

and  after  dinner.  I  do  not  know  that  the  cere- 
mony was  very  edifying,  but  it  was  traditional 
and  respectable.  Bishop  Wilberforce,  in  his 
diary,  tells  of  a  greedy  clergyman  who,  when 
asked  to  say  grace  at  a  dinner-party,  used  to  vary 
the  form  according  to  the  character  of  the  wine- 
glasses which  he  saw  before  him  on  the  table. 
If  they  were  champagne-glasses,  he  used  to  begin 
the  benediction  with  "  Bountiful  Jehovah  "  ;  but,  if 
they  were  only  claret-glasses,  he  said,  "  We  are 
not  worthy  of  the  least  of  Thy  mercies." 

Charles  Kingsley,  who  generally  drew  his  social 
portraits  from  actual  life,  described  the  impressive 
eloquence  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  O'Blareaway,  who  inaug- 
urated an  exceptionally  good  dinner  by  praying 
"that  the  daily  bread  of  our  less-favoured  brethren 
might  be  mercifully  vouchsafed  to  them." 

There  was  a  well-remembered  squire  in  Hert- 
fordshire whose  love  of  his  dinner  was  constantly 
at  war  with  his  pietistic  traditions.  He  always 
had  his  glass  of  sherry  poured  out  before  he  sate 
down  to  dinner,  so  that  he  might  get  it  without 
a  moment's  delay.  One  night,  in  his  generous 
eagerness,  he  upset  the  glass  just  as  he  dropped 
into  his  seat  at  the  end  of  grace,  and  the  formula 
ran  on  to  an  unexpected  conclusion,  thus  :  "  For 
what  we  are  going  to  receive  the  Lord  make  us 
truly  thankful— D n  !  " 

But,  if  the  incongruities  which  attended  grace 
before  dinner  were  disturbing,  still  more  so  were 
the  solemnities  of  the  close.     Grace  after  dinner 


376  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

always  happened  at  the  moment  of  loudest  and 
most  general  conversation.  For  an  hour  and  a 
half  people  had  been  stuffing  as  if  their  lives 
depended  on  it — "  one  feeding  like  forty."  After 
a  good  deal  of  sherry,  the  champagne  had  made 
its  tardy  appearance,  had  performed  its  welcome 
rounds,  and  had  in  turn  been  succeeded  by  port 
and  home-brewed  beer.  Out  of  the  abundance 
of  the  mouth  the  heart  speaketh,  and  every  one 
was  talking  at  once,  and  very  loud.  Perhaps  the 
venue  was  laid  in  a  fox-hunting  country,  and 
then  the  air  was  full  of  such  voices  as  these  : 
"Were  you  out  with  the  squire  to-day?"  "Any 
sport  ? "  "  Yes,  we'd  rather  a  nice  gallop." 
"Plenty  of  the  animal  about,  I  hope?"  "Well, 
I  don't  know.  I  believe  that  new  keeper  at  Bore- 
ham  Wood  is  a  vulpicide.  I  don't  half  like  his 
looks."  "  What  an  infernal  villain  !  A  man  who 
would  shoot  a  fox  would  poison  his  own  grand- 
mother." "Sh!  Sh!"  "What's  the  matter?" 
" For  what  we  have  received"  &c. 

Or  perhaps  we  are  dining  in  London  in  the 
height  of  the  season.  Fox-hunting  is  not  the 
theme,  but  the  conversation  is  loud,  animated, 
and  discursive.  A  lyrical  echo  from  the  summer 
of  1866  is  borne  back  upon  my  memory — 

Agreeable  Rattle. 

This  news  from  abroad  is  alarming  ; 

You've  seen  the  Pall  Mall  of  to-day  ! 
Oh !  lima  di  Murska  was  charming 

To-night  in  the  Flauto,  they  say. 


RELIGION  377 

Not  a  ghost  of  a  chance  for  the  Tories, 

In  spite  of  Adullam  and  Lowe ; 
By  the  bye,  have  you  heard  the  queer  stories 

Of  Overend,  Gurney  and  Co.  ?  " 

Lively  Young-  Lady.  Do  you  know  you've  been 
talking  at  the  top  of  your  voice  all  the  time  grace 
was  going  on  ? 

Agreeable  Rattle.  Not  really  ?  I'm  awfully  sorry. 
But  our  host  mumbles  so,  I  never  can  make  out 
what  he's  saying. 

Lively  Young  Lady.  I  can't  imagine  why  people 
don't  have  grace  after  dessert.  I  know  I'm  much 
more  thankful  for  strawberry  ice  than  for  saddle 
of  mutton. 

And  so  on  and  so  forth.  On  the  whole,  I  am 
not  sure  that  the  abolition  of  grace  is  a  sign  of 
moral  degeneracy,  but  I  note  it  as  a  social  change 
which  I  have  seen. 

Another  such  change  is  the  disuse  of  Family 
Prayers.  In  the  days  of  my  youth,  morning 
prayers  at  least  formed  part  of  the  ritual  of  every 
well-ordered  household.  The  scene  recurs  vividly 
to  the  mental  eye — the  dining-room  arranged  for 
breakfast,  and  the  master  of  the  house  in  top-boots 
and  breeches  with  the  family  Bible  in  close  proxi- 
mity to  the  urn  on  the  table.  Mamma  very  often 
breakfasted  upstairs  ;  but  the  sons  and  daughters  of 
the  house,  perhaps  with  their  toilettes  not  quite 
complete,  came  in  with  a  rush  just  as  the  proceed- 
ings began,  and  a  long  row  of  maid-servants, 
headed  by  the  housekeeper  and  supported  by  the 


378  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

footmen,  were  ranged  with  military  precision 
against  the  opposite  wall.  In  families  of  a  more 
pronouncedly  religious  tone,  evening  prayers  were 
frequently  superadded ;  and  at  ten  o'clock  the 
assembled  guests  were  aroused  from  "  Squails " 
or  "  Consequences  "  by  the  entrance  of  the  butler 
with  "  Thornton's  Family  Prayers  "  on  a  silver  salver. 
In  one  very  Evangelical  house  which  I  knew  in 
my  youth,  printed  prayers  were  superseded  by  ex- 
tempore devotions,  and,  as  the  experiment  seemed 
successful,  the  servants  were  invited  to  make  their 
contributions  in  their  own  words.  As  long  as 
only  the  butler  and  the  housekeeper  voiced  the 
aspirations  of  their  fellows,  all  was  well ;  but,  in  an 
evil  moment,  a  recalcitrant  kitchenmaid  uttered 
an  unlooked-for  petition  for  her  master  and 
mistress — "  And  we  pray  for  Sir  Thomas  and 
her  Ladyship.  Oh  !  may  they  have  now  hearts 
given  them."  And  the  bare  suggestion  that  there 
was  room  for  such  an  improvement  caused  a 
prompt  return  to  the  lively  oracles  of  Henry 
Thornton. 

I  note  the  disappearance  of  the  domestic  liturgy  ; 
and  here  again,  as  in  the  matter  of  grace,  I  submit 
that,  unless  the  rite  can  be  decently,  reasonably, 
and  reverently  performed,  it  is  more  honoured 
in  the  breach  than  in  the  observance. 

Much  more  significant  is  the  secularization  of 
Sunday.  This  is  not  merely  a  change,  but  a 
change  conspicuously  for  the  worse.  The  amount 
of  church-going  always  differed  in  different  circles ; 


RELIGION  379 

religious  people  went  often  and  careless  people 
went  seldom,  but  almost  every  one  went  some- 
times, if  merely  from  a  sense  of  duty  and  de- 
corum. Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  traditions  were 
Evangelical,  thought  very  poorly  of  what  he  called 
a  "once-er,"  i.e.  a  person  who  attended  divine 
service  only  once  on  a  Sunday.  He  himself  was 
always  a  "  twice-er,"  and  often  a  "  thrice-er  "  ;  but 
to-day  it  would  puzzle  the  social  critic  to  discover 
a  "  twice-er,"  and  even  a  "  once-er "  is  sufficiently 
rare  to  be  noticeable. 

But  far  more  serious  than  the  decay  of  mere 
attendance  at  church  is  the  complete  abolition  of 
the  Day  of  Rest.  People,  who  have  nothing  to 
do  but  to  amuse  themselves,  work  at  that  en- 
trancing occupation  with  redoubled  energy  on 
Sundays.  If  they  are  in  London,  they  whirl  off 
to  spend  the  "week-end"  amid  the  meretricious 
splendours  of  the  stockbroker's  suburban  para- 
dise ;  and,  if  they  are  entertaining  friends  at  their 
country  houses,  they  play  bridge  or  tennis  or 
croquet ;  they  row,  ride,  cycle,  and  drive,  spend 
the  afternoon  in  a  punt,  and  wind  up  the  evening 
with  "The  Washington  Post." 

All  this  is  an  enormous  change  since  the  days 
when  the  only  decorous  amusement  for  Sunday 
was  a  visit  after  church  to  the  stables,  or  a  walk 
in  the  afternoon  to  the  home  farm  or  the  kitchen 
garden  ;  and,  of  course,  it  entails  a  correspond- 
ing amount  of  labour  for  the  servants.  Maids 
and   valets   spend  the  "  week-end  "   in  a  whirl  of 


380  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

packing   and   unpacking,    and   the   whole   staff  of 
the  kitchen  is  continuously  employed. 

In  old  days  people  used  to  reduce  the  meals 
on  Sunday  to  the  narrowest  dimensions,  in  order 
to  give  the  servants  their  weekly  due  of  rest  and 
recreation,  and  in  a  family  with  which  I  am 
connected  the  traditional  bill  of  fare  for  Sunday's 
dinner,  drawn  by  a  cook  who  lived  before  the 
School  Board,  is  still  affectionately  remembered — 

Soup. 

Cold  Beef. 

Salad. 

Cold  Sweats. 

In  brief,  respectable  people  used  to  eat  and 
drink  sparingly  on  Sunday,  caused  no  unnecessary 
work,  went  a  good  deal  to  church,  and  filled  up 
their  leisure  time  by  visiting  sick  people  in  the 
cottages  or  teaching  in  the  Sunday  School.  No 
doubt  there  was  a  trace  of  Puritan  strictness 
about  the  former  practice,  and  people  too  gener- 
ally forgot  that  the  First  Day  of  the  week  is  by 
Christian  tradition  a  feast.  Society  has  redis- 
covered that  great  truth.  It  observes  the  weekly 
feast  by  over-eating  itself,  and  honours  the  day 
of  rest  by  over-working  its  dependants. 


LII 

SUPERSTITION 

"  Superstition  and  infidelity  usually  go  together. 
Professed  atheists  have  trafficked  in  augury,  and 
men  who  do  not  believe  in  God  will  believe  in 
ghosts."  To-day  I  take  up  my  parable  concern- 
ing superstition,  to  which,  time  out  of  mind,  the 
human  spirit  has  betaken  itself  as  soon  as  it  parted 
company  with  faith. 

I  once  asked  a  lady  who,  in  her  earlier  life,  had 
lived  in  the  very  heart  of  society,  and  who  returned 
to  it  after  a  long  absence,  what  was  the  change 
which  struck  her  most  forcibly.  She  promptly 
replied,  "The  growth  of  superstition.  I  hear 
people  seriously  discussing  ghosts.  In  my  day 
people  who  talked  in  that  way  would  have  been 
put  in  Bedlam  ;  their  relations  would  have  required 
no  other  proof  that  they  were  mad." 

My  own  experience  entirely  confirms  this  testi- 
mony as  to  the  development  of  superstition,  and 
I  have  had  some  peculiarly  favourable  oppor- 
tunities of  observing  its  moral  effect  upon  its 
votaries.  The  only  superstition  tolerated  in  my 
youth    was    table-turning,    and    that    was    always 

treated    as   more    than    half   a  joke.     To    sit    in   a 

381 


382  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

darkened  room  round  a  tea-table,  secretly  join 
hands  under  the  mahogany,  and  "communicate 
a  revolving  motion "  to  it  (as  Mr.  Pickwick  to 
his  fists)  was  not  bad  fun  when  the  company  was 
mainly  young  and  larky,  but  contained  one  or  two 
serious  people  who  desired  to  probe  the  mystery 
to  its  depths.  Or,  perhaps,  our  psychic  force 
would  cause  the  respectable  piece  of  furniture 
to  rear  itself  upon  one  leg,  and  deal  out  with 
a  ponderous  foot  mysterious  raps,  which  the 
serious  people  interpreted  with  their  own  admir- 
able solemnity.  I  well  remember  a  massive  gentle- 
man with  an  appalling  stammer  who  proclaimed 
that  some  lost  document  which  we  had  asked  the 
table  to  discover  would  be  found  in  the  Vatican 
Library,  "wrapped  in  a  ragged  palimpsest  of 
Tertullian ;  "  and  the  quaintness  of  the  utterance 
dissolved  the  tables,  or  at  least  the  table-turners, 
in  laughter.  This  particular  form  of  superstition 
became  discredited  among  respectable  people  when 
sharpers  got  hold  of  it  and  used  it  as  an  engine 
for  robbing  the  weak-minded.  It  died,  poor  thing, 
of  exposure,  and  its  epitaph  was  written  by  Brown- 
ing in  "  Mr.  Sludge,  the  Medium." 

It  was  the  same  with  ghost-stories.  People 
told  them — partly  to  fill  gaps  when  reasonable 
conversation  failed,  and  partly  for  the  fun  of 
making  credulous  hearers  stare  and  gasp.  But 
no  one,  except  ladies  as  weak-minded  as  Byng's 
Half-Aunt  in  "  Happy  Thoughts,"  ever  thought  of 
taking    them    seriously.     Bishop    Wilberforce    in- 


SUPERSTITION  383 

vented  a  splendid  story  about  a  priest  and  a 
sliding  panel  and  a  concealed  confession  ;  and  I 
believe  that  he  habitually  used  it  as  a  foolometer, 
to  test  the  mental  capacity  of  new  acquaintances. 
But  the  Bishop  belonged  to  that  older  generation 
which  despised  superstition,  and  during  the  last 
few  years,  twaddle  of  this  kind  has  risen  to  the 
dignity  of  a  pseudo-science. 

Necromancy  is  a  favourite  substitute  for  re- 
ligion. It  supplies  the  element  of  mystery  with- 
out which  the  human  spirit  cannot  long  subsist ; 
and,  as  it  does  not  require  its  adherents  to  prac- 
tise self-denial,  or  get  up  early  on  Sunday,  or 
subscribe  to  charities,  or  spend  their  leisure  in 
evil-smelling  slums,  it  is  a  cult  particularly  well 
adapted  to  a  self-indulgent  age.  I  vividly  re- 
member a  scene  which  occurred  just  before  the 
Coronation.  A  luxurious  luncheon  had  been  pro- 
longed by  the  aid  of  coffee,  kummel,  and  cigarettes 
till  four  o'clock  ;  and  the  necromancers — surfeited, 
flushed,  and  a  little  maudlin — were  lolling  round 
the  drawing-room  fire.  A  whispered  colloquy  in  a 
corner  was  heard  through  the  surrounding  chatter, 
and  the  hostess  saw  her  opportunity.  "  Dear 
Lady  De  Spook,  do  let  us  hear.  I  know  you  are 
such  a  wonderful  medium." 

Lady  De  Spook.  Really,  it  was  nothing  at  all 
out  of  the  common.  I  had  come  home  dead  tired 
from  the  opera,  and  just  as  I  was  going  to  bed  I 
heard  that  rap — you  know  what  I  mean  ? 

Mr.    Sludge    (enthusiastically).    Oh    yes,    indeed 


384  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

I  do  !  No  one  who  has  ever  heard  it  can  ever 
forget  it. 

Lady  De  Spook  (resuming).  Well,  and  do  you 
know  it  turned  out  to  be  poor  dear  Lord  De 
Spook.  It  was  wonderful  how  energetically  he 
rapped,  for  you  know  he  was  quite  paralysed 
years  before  he  died ;  and  the  curious  thing  was 
that  I  couldn't  make  out  what  he  said.  It  seemed 
to  be,  "  Don't  buy.  Sarah.  Search."  I  was  too 
tired  to  go  on  talking  to  him,  so  I  went  to  bed  ; 
but  next  day,  do  you  know,  my  maid  found  the 
coronet  which  his  first  wife,  whose  name  was 
Sarah,  had  worn  at  the  last  coronation.  I  was 
just  going  to  order  a  new  one.  Wasn't  it  a 
wonderful  interposition  ! — Such  a  saving  ! 

Chorus  (sentimentally).  Ah,  wonderful  indeed  ! 
Our  dear  ones  are  never  really  lost  to  us. 

Closely  connected  with  necromancy  is  clair- 
voyance. A  man  whom  I  knew  well  was  taken 
suddenly  and  seriously  ill,  and  his  relations,  who 
were  enthusiastic  spookists,  telegraphed  for  the 
celebrated  clairvoyante  Mrs.  Endor.  She  duly 
arrived,  threw  herself  into  a  trance,  declared  that 
the  patient  would  die,  came  to,  and  declared  that 
there  was  nothing  much  the  matter,  and  that  he 
would  be  about  again  in  two  or  three  days. 
Then,  having  pocketed  her  cheque,  she  returned 
to  London.  The  patient  grew  rapidly  worse,  and 
died  ;  and  his  relations,  though  I  am  sure  they 
sincerely  mourned  him,  were  much  sustained  in 
the  hour  of  bereavement  by  the  thought  that  the 


SUPERSTITION  385 

opinion  which  Mrs.  Endor  had  given  in  her  trance 
had  proved  to  be  the  right  one,  and  that  spiritual 
science  was  justified  by  the  result. 

But,  after  all,  necromancy  and  clairvoyance 
are  a  little  old-fashioned.  Crystal-gazing  is  more 
modish.  'Tis  as  easy  as  lying.  You  gather  open- 
mouthed  round  a  glass  ball,  and  the  gifted  gazer 
reports  that  which  he  or  she  can  see,  but  which 
is  invisible  to  grosser  eyes.  There  are  no  bounds 
to  the  fascinating  range  of  a  crystal-gazer's  fancy, 
nor  to  the  awe-struck  credulity  with  which  his 
revelations  are  received. 

But  crystal  is  not  the  only  medium  through 
which  a  purged  eye  can  discern  the  mysterious 
future.  Coffee-grounds,  though  less  romantic, 
are  very  serviceable.  Our  hostess  is  an  expert 
in  this  form  of  science,  and,  being  a  thoroughly 
amiable  woman,  she  makes  the  coffee  say  pretty 
much  what  we  should  like  to  hear.  "  Dear  Mr. 
Taper,  this  is  delightful.  You  will  be  Prime 
Minister  before  you  die.  It  is  true  that  your 
party  will  not  be  in  office  again  just  yet ;  but 
'  hope  on,  hope  ever,'  and  trust  your  star." 

"  Oh  !  Mr.  Garbage,  I  have  such  good  news 
for  you.  Your  next  book  will  be  an  immense 
success,  and,  after  that,  Messrs.  Skin  &  Flint  will 
be  more  liberal,  and,  what  with  the  American 
copyright  and  the  acting  rights,  you  will  make 
quite  a  fortune." 

Closely  akin  to  the  science  of  coffee-grounds 
is  that  of  palmistry.     A  wretched  gipsy  who  "  tells 

2  B 


386  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

fortunes"  at  a  race-meeting  is  sent  to  prison; 
but,  when  St.  Berengaria's  gets  up  a  bazaar  for 
its  new  vestry,  a  bejewelled  lady  sits  in  a  secret 
chamber  (for  admission  to  which  an  extra  half- 
crown  is  charged),  and,  after  scrutinizing  your 
line  of  life,  tells  you  that  you  have  had  the  in- 
fluenza ;  and,  projecting  her  soul  into  futurity, 
predicts  that  the  next  time  you  have  it  you  will 
get  pneumonia  unless  you  are  very  careful. 

Of  course,  these  minor  superstitions  are  mainly 
ridiculous,  and  to  get  up  moral  indignation  over 
them  would  be  a  waste  of  force.  But  one  can- 
not speak  so  lightly  of  the  degrading  cults  which 
are  grouped  together  under  the  name  of  Spiritual- 
ism. I  have  known  a  "Spiritual  Wife"  who  was 
highly  commended  in  spookish  circles  because 
she  left  her  husband,  family,  and  home  in  one 
continent  and  crossed  the  world  to  find  her 
"affinity"  in  another.  I  have  known  a  most 
promising  boy  whose  health  was  destroyed  and 
his  career  ruined  by  a  hypnotic  experiment  per- 
formed on  him  without  his  parents'  knowledge. 
I  have  known  a  mesmeric  clergyman  who  cozened 
the  women  of  his  congregation  out  of  money, 
character,  and  in  some  cases  reason.  Where 
occultism  is  pursued,  all  veracity  and  self-respect 
disappear;  pruriency  finds  a  congenial  lodgment, 
and  the  issue  is — well — what  we  sometimes  see 
exhibited  in  all  its  uncomeliness  at  the  Central 
Criminal  Court. 

The  wisest  lawgiver  who  ever  lived  said,  "  Thou 


SUPERSTITION  387 


shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live."  And  a  great 
judge  acted  on  the  rule.  But  that  was  a  long 
time  ago.  We  have  improved  upon  the  jurisprud- 
ence of  Moses  and  the  methods  of  Sir  Matthew 
Hale.  Stoning  and  hanging  are  a  little  out  of 
date,  but  boycotting  is  a  remedy  still  within  our 
reach.  Whoso  is  wise  will  ponder  these  things, 
and  will  give  occultists,  male  and  female,  an  un- 
commonly wide  berth. 


LIII 

THE    REMNANT 

SOME  recent  observations  of  mine  on  the  de- 
terioration of  society  have  drawn  this  interesting 
response  from  an  eminent  clergyman  in  the 
north  of  London  : — 

"  Is  it  possible  that  in  '  Society '  itself  there  is  a 
point  of  resistance  which  may  be  touched  by  an 
effective  appeal  coming  from  the  wholesomer 
elements  in  English  life  ?  Belonging  as  I  do 
to  that  section  of  English  life  which  is  a  stranger 
to  Society  in  the  technical  sense,  I  am  deeply 
impressed  with  the  taint  which  comes  to  all 
circles  of  society  from  the  contamination  of  the 
circle  at  the  top.  To  elicit  a  strong  opinion  and 
a  resolute  determination  from  what  I  may  call 
the  Puritan  side  of  English  life,  may  be  perhaps 
the  first  step  towards  the  correction  of  the  evil 
which  Mr.  Russell  describes.  Are  there  not  in 
Society  itself  some  men  and  women  who  retain 
the  high  ideals  and  the  strenuous  purposes  of 
their  ancestry  ?  Can  they  be  induced  to  raise 
their  protest,  to  assert  their  principles,  and  open 
the   way   to    a   better — because   a    purer — future  ? 

I   venture  to  make  this   appeal  because  it  is   my 

388 


THE    REMNANT  389 

fixed  conviction  that  even  in  the  worst  and  most 
degraded  society  there  are  men  who  sigh  for 
better  things,  just  as  in  the  worst  and  most  de- 
graded men  there  remains  a  desire,  however  over- 
laid, for  regeneration." 

Well,  frankly  I  think  that  an  amiable  insanity 
deludes  my  reverend  friend  if  he  expects  a  moral 
reformation  in  the  sort  of  society  which  I  have 
been  describing.  It  would  tax  the  combined 
energies  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  Savonarola,  the 
two  Wesleys,  and  George  Whitefield,  all  rolled 
into  one,  to  convince  the  people  whom  I  have 
in  my  mind  of  their  ethical  shortcomings.  They 
have  made  their  own  beds,  in  every  sense  of 
that  expressive  phrase,  and  must  lie  on  them  till 
the  cataclysm  comes  which  will  bring  us  all  to 
our  senses. 

But  I  am  reminded  that  I  promised  to  write 
not  exclusively  about  deteriorations  in  society, 
but  about  changes  of  all  kinds.  That  there 
has  been  some  change  for  the  better  I  readily 
admit,  as  well  as  an  enormous  number  of  changes 
for  the  worse.  "All  things  are  double,"  says  the 
Son  of  Sirach,  "  one  against  the  other,"  and  in 
this  closing  chapter  I  will  try  to  balance  our  gains 
and  our  losses. 

That  there  has  always  been  a  mixture  of  good 
and  bad  in  society  is  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  society  is  part  of  mankind ;  but,  if  I  am 
right  in  my  survey,  the  bad  just  now  is  flagrant 
and  ostentatious  to  a  degree  which  we  have  not 


390  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

known  in  England  since  1837.  There  was  once 
a  moralist  who  spoke  of  the  narrow  path  which 
lay  between  right  and  wrong,  and  similarly  there 
used  to  be  a  Debatable  Land  which  lay  between 
the  good  and  evil  districts  of  society.  It  was 
inhabited  by  the  people  who,  having  no  ethical 
convictions  of  their  own,  go  very  much  as  they 
are  led.     It  was  written  of  them  long  ago  that — 

"They  eat,  they  drink,  they  sleep,  they  plod, 
They  go  to  church  on  Sunday ; 
And  many  are  afraid  of  God, 
And  more  of  Mrs.  Grundy." 

As  long  as  Mrs.  Grundy  was  a  real,  though 
comical,  guardian  of  social  propriety — as  long 
as  the  highest  influences  in  the  social  system 
tended  towards  virtue  and  decorum — the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  Debatable  Land  were  even  painfully 
respectable.  But  now  that  the  "trend"  (as 
Pennialinus  calls  it)  is  all  the  other  way,  and 
Mrs.  Grundy  has  been  deposed  as  a  bore  and 
an  anachronism,  they  willingly  follow  the  "smart" 
multitude  to  do  evil ;  and  so  the  area  covered 
by  social  wickedness  is  much  larger  than  in 
former  times.  In  other  words,  the  evil  of  society 
is  both  worse  in  quality  and  larger  in  quantity 
than  it  was  fifty — or  even  twenty — years  ago. 

Now  if  this  be  true — and  I  hold  it  to  be  un- 
questionable— what  have  we  to  set  against  it  ?  I 
reply,  the  greatly  increased  activity  of  those  who 
are    really    good.      In    old    days    the    good    were 


THE    REMNANT  391 

good  in  a  quiescent  and  lethargic  way.  They 
were  punctual  in  religious  observances,  public 
and  private ;  exemplary  in  the  home  and  the 
family,  and  generous  to  the  poor.  But  their 
religion  could  scarcely  be  called  active,  except 
in  so  far  as  pottering  about  among  the  cottages, 
or  teaching  a  class  of  well-washed  children  in 
the  Sunday  School,  can  be  reckoned  as  active 
employments ;  and  even  such  activities  as  these 
were  as  a  rule  confined  to  women. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  believed  that  "there  were 
few  young  men,  and  those  very  sturdy  moralists, 
who  would  not  rather  be  taxed  with  some  moral 
peccadillo  than  with  want  of  horsemanship." 
And,  in  days  much  more  recent  than  the  be- 
loved Sir  Walter's,  men,  if  they  were  religious, 
studiously  kept  their  light  under  a  bushel,  and 
took  the  utmost  pains  to  avoid  being  detected  in 
acts  of  charity  or  devotion. 

Nowadays  all  this  is  changed,  and  changed,  in 
my  opinion,  much  for  the  better.  Religious 
people  are  ready  to  let  the  world  know  what 
they  believe,  and  are  active  in  the  pursuit  of 
the  things  which  are  pure  and  lovely  and  of 
good  report.  Well-dressed  young  men  combine 
dancing  with  slumming.  Untidiness  and  dulness 
are  no  longer  the  necessary  concomitants  of 
virtue.  Officers  of  the  Guards  sing  in  the  choir 
and  serve  the  altar.  Men  whose  names  are 
written  in  the  book  of  the  peerage  as  well  as 
the  Book  of  Life  conduct  Bible-classes  and  hand 


392  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

round  the  hymn-books  at  mission-services.  The 
group  of  young  M.P.'s  who  were  nicknamed 
"  Hughligans"  showed  the  astonished  House  of 
Commons  that  Religion  is  as  practical  a  thing 
as  Politics,  and  (as  one  of  them  lately  said)  they 
cheerfully  encountered  that  hot  water  which  is 
the  modern  substitute  for  boiling  oil.  The  Uni- 
versities send  their  best  atheletes  and  social 
favourites  to  curacies  in  the  slums  or  martyrdom 
in  the  mission-field.  The  example  set  by  Mr. 
James  Adderley,  when  he  left  Christ  Church  and 
founded  the  Oxford  House  at  Bethnal  Green, 
has  been  followed  in  every  direction.  Both  the 
Universities,  and  most  of  the  colleges,  run  "Settle- 
ments," where  laymen,  in  the  intervals  of  profes- 
sional work  and  social  enjoyment,  spread  religion, 
culture,  and  physical  education  amid  the  "dim, 
common  populations "  of  Camberwell  and  Strat- 
ford and  Poplar. 

The  Public  Schools,  formerly  denounced  as 
"  the  seats  and  nurseries  of  vice,"  make  their  full 
contribution  to  active  religion.  Eton  and  Win- 
chester and  Harrow  have  their  Missions  in 
crowded  quarters  of  great  towns.  At  one  school, 
the  boys  have  a  guild  of  devotion ;  at  another,  a 
voluntary  Bible-class  with  which  no  master  inter- 
meddles. And  so  the  young  citizens  of  the 
privileged  order  gain  their  first  lessons  in  religious 
and  social  service,  and  carry  the  idea  with  them 
to  the  Army  or  the  Bar  or  the  Stock  Exchange 
or   the    House  of  Commons.     All   this  is,   in  my 


THE    REMNANT  393 

eyes,  a  social   change  which  is  also  a  clear  and 
enormous  gain. 

But,  if  what  I  say  is  true  of  men,  it  is  even 
more  conspicuously  true  of  women.  They  are 
no  longer  content  with  the  moderate  church- 
going  at  comfortable  hours,  and  the  periodical 
visits  to  particularly  clean  cottages,  which  at  one 
time  were  the  sum-total  of  their  activities.  Every 
well-organized  parish  has  its  staff  of  woman- 
workers,  who  combine  method  with  enthusiasm 
and  piety  with  common  sense.  Belgravia  and 
Mayfair  send  armies  of  district-visitors  to  Hoxton 
and  Poplar.  Girls  from  fashionable  homes,  pretty 
and  well  dressed,  sacrifice  their  evenings  to  clubs 
and  social  gatherings  for  factory-hands  and  maids- 
of-all-work.  Beneath  the  glittering  surface  of 
social  life,  there  is  a  deep  current  of  wise  and 
devoted  effort  for  those  unhappy  beings  who  are 
least  able  to  help  themselves.  And  all  this  philan- 
thropic energy  is  distinctively  and  avowedly  Chris- 
tian. It  is  the  work  of  men  and  women,  young 
and  old,  widely  differentiated  from  one  another  in 
outward  circumstances  of  wealth  and  accomplish- 
ments and  social  influence,  but  all  agreed  about 
"the  one  thing  needful,"  and  all  keen  to  confess 
their  faith  before  a  hostile  world. 

What,  then,  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter  ?  Society,  during  the  years  in  which  I 
have  known  it,  has  changed  enormously,  alike 
in  its  exterior  characteristics  and,  as  far  as  I  can 
judge,    in    its    inner    spirit.     While    some    of   the 

2  C 


394  SEEING    AND    HEARING 

changes  have  been  simply  innocuous,  and  a  few 
even  beneficial,  the  great  majority  have  been 
gross  and  palpable  deteriorations.  An  onlooker 
who  knew  society  well  thus  described  its  present 
condition  :  "  We  are  living  in  an  age  of  decadence, 
and  we  pretend  not  to  know  it.  There  is  not  a 
feature  wanting,  though  we  cannot  mention  the 
worst  of  them.  We  are  Romans  of  the  worst 
period,  given  up  to  luxury  and  effeminacy,  and 
caring  for  nothing  but  money.  We  care  no  more 
for  beauty  in  art,  but  only  for  a  brutal  realism. 
Sport  has  lost  its  manliness,  and  is  a  matter  of 
pigeons  from  a  trap,  or  a  mountain  of  crushed 
pheasants  to  sell  to  your  own  tradesmen.  Religion 
is  coming  down  to  jugglers  and  table-turnings 
and  philanderings  with  cults  brought,  like  the 
rites  of  I  sis,  from  the  East ;  and  as  for  patriotism, 
it  is  turned  on  like  beer  at  election  times,  or 
worked  like  a  mechanical  doll  by  wire-pullers. 
We  belong  to  one  of  the  most  corrupt  genera- 
tions of  the  human  race.  To  find  its  equal  one 
must  go  back  to  the  worst  times  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  look  devilish  close  then.  But  it's 
uncommonly  amusing  to  live  in  an  age  of  deca- 
dence ;  you  see  the  funniest  sights  and  you  get 
every  conceivable  luxury,  and  you  die  before  the 
irruption  of  the  barbarians." 

This  is,  I  believe,  a  true  indictment  against  the 
age  in  which  our  lot  is  cast,  although  the  utterance 
has  just  that  touch  of  exaggeration  which  secures 
a  hearing  for  unpalatable  truth.     But  the  man  who 


THE    REMNANT  395 

wrote  it  left  out  of  account  that  redeeming  element 
in  our  national  life  which  I  have  discussed  in  this 
closing  chapter.  After  all,  there  is  a  world-wide 
difference  between  the  "  Majority"  and  the  "Rem- 
nant,"— and  the  ten  righteous  men  may  yet  save 
the  guilty  city. 


POSTSCRIPT 

The  bulk  of  this  book  appeared  in  the  "  Manchester 
Guardian"  and  my  thanks  are  due  to  Mr.  C,  P. 
Scott  for  permission  to  reproduce  it.  The  last  twelve 
chapters  were  originally  published  under  the  title^ 
"  For  Better  ?  For  Worse  ?  "  and  they  reappear  by 
the  kind  consent  of  Mr.  Fisher  Unwin. 

G.  TV.  E.  R. 

Twelfth  Night,  1907. 


Printed  by  Hallantyne,   Hanson  <5f»  Co. 
Edinburgh  <5^  London 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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